Governments have launched a campaign to encourage the take-up of the ISO 50001 global standard to help businesses cut energy use and costs.
The Energy Management Campaign is aiming for 50,001 government, business and industry leaders to become certified to ISO 50001 by 2020. The standard specifies how to create, implement, maintain and improve an energy management system and covers energy efficiency and consumption.
Widespread implementation of the standard across the world’s commercial and industrial sectors could save US$600 bn and avoid 6,500 Mt CO2 emissions according to the campaign. Projected yearly emissions savings in 2030 would be equivalent to taking 215 million passenger vehicles off the road, according to the campaign’s advocates.
The campaign was launched by the Clean Energy Ministerial and International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation, at the 7th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7) in San Francisco, US.
Organisations pledging to promote take-up of ISO 50001 include the Carbon Trust and non-profit the Climate Group. The campaign is also backed by businesses such as Samsung, Schneider Electric and LG Chem, who said they will not only certify their own plants, but also encourage their supply chain and clients to do the same.
More than 6,700 organisations are certified to ISO 50001, according to a 2014 survey by ISO, the most recent data available.
The campaign is complementary to one run by the Climate Group, EP100, which aims to double the economic output of a business from each unit of energy it consumes.
Also at CEM7, the Danish and German governments launched a campaign to encourage corporate sourcing of renewable energy through the RE100 campaign.
The RE100 campaign is led by the Climate Group and CDP and commits companies to source 100% of their power from renewable technologies. Six new organisations joined RE100: global interconnection and data centre provider Equinix; Swedish packaging giant Tetra Pak; Canadian bank TD Bank Group; carpet manufacturer Interface; global media group Dentsu Aegis Network; and software firm Workday.
This takes the total number of companies in RE100 to 65. Other countries signing up to promote RE100 include China, the EU, Mexico, the US and UK. The energy and climate department (Decc) had not responded for a request for the detail of its involvement at the time of publication.
Mark Kenber, CEO of the Climate Group, said that the demand for renewables from corporates is as important as supportive government policy.
‘The Clean Energy Ministerial is shining the spotlight on RE100 as a model of best practice in galvanising the switch to renewable energy, and the wave of influential companies joining RE100 today shows the business case for 100% renewables is as strong as ever,’ he said.
