The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) would like to inform all stakeholders that ISO 50001, a standards development initiative of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), has been recently approved as a Draft International Standard (DIS).
What will ISO 50001 address?


  • A framework for integrating energy efficiency into management practices
  • Making better use of existing energy-consuming assets
  • Benchmarking, measuring, documenting, and reporting energy intensity improvements and their projected impact on reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
  • Transparency and communication on the management of energy resources
  • Energy management best practices and good energy management behaviors
  • Evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new energy-efficient technologies
  • A framework for promoting energy efficiency throughout the supply chain
  • Energy management improvements in the context of GHG emission reduction projects.
ISO 50001 is being developed by Project Committee (PC) 242,Energy management. The standard will provide energy management systems guidelines for industrial plants, commercial facilities, and entire organizations. ANSI serves as the committee Secretariat in partnership with Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT).
The document is based on the common elements found in all of ISO’s management system standards, assuring a high level of compatibility with ISO 9001, Quality management systems, and ISO 14001, Environmental management systems. Now that ISO 50001 has advanced to the DIS stage, national member bodies of ISO have been invited to vote and comment on the text of the standard during the five-month balloting period.
If the outcome of the DIS voting is positive, the modified document will then be circulated to the ISO members as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). If that vote is positive, ISO 50001 is expected to be published as an International Standard by early 2011.
As the U.S. member body to ISO, ANSI has accredited the Georgia Institute of Technology Energy and Sustainability Services (GT ESS) as administrator of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO PC 242. In this capacity, GT ESS staff provide administrative facilitation for all aspects of the TAG’s work. Roland Risser from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) serves as the TAG chair.
The TAG met in Katy, TX in May to review initial feedback collected from TAG members and to develop the U.S. comments to be passed forward to PC 242. The TAG will use the input to formulate the U.S. vote on whether the project advances to the FDIS, or final draft stage.
For further information, please contact either Deann Desai of GT ESS (deann.desai@gatech.edu) or Jason Knopes of ANSI (jknopes@ansi.org).