The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has launched a project to develop an international standard for energy management, following the successful examples of the ISO 9000 series on quality management and the ISO 14000 series on environmental management.

The creation of a project committee (referred to as ISO/PC 242) signals the first step in the development of the standards, which is expected to provide a practical and widely recognized approach to increasing energy efficiency, reducing costs and improving environmental performance by addressing both the technical and management aspects of rational energy use. It will also offer organizations with operations in more than one country a single, harmonized standard for implementation across the organization, and provide a logical and consistent methodology for identifying and implementing improvements that may contribute to a continual increase in energy efficiency across facilities.
The standard is intended to be broadly applicable to various sectors of national economies, including utility, manufacturing, commercial building, general commerce and transportation sectors, and therefore could have influence on as much as 60 percent of the world’s energy demand. ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden commented: “The urgency to reduce GHG emissions, the reality of higher prices from reduced availability of fossil fuels, and the need to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources, provide a strong rationale for developing this new standard building on the most advanced best practices and existing national or regional standards.”
A working group meeting co-organized by UNIDO and the China Standard Certification Service will convene in Beijing, China, on 9-11 April 2008, and the secretariat of ISO/PC 242 will be held jointly by the ISO members for the United States and Brazil: ANSI (American National Standardization Institute) and ABNT (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas).
ISO press release, 27 March 2008 | Working Group Meeting: Towards an International Energy Management System Standard, Beijing, China, on 9-11 April 2008.