SGS Bridging the Gap to Further Energy Savings

SGS United Kingdom Ltd is launching workshops to help ESOS compliant companies understand the benefits of moving from ESOS energy assessments to ISO 50001 certification – the only compliance route providing a framework to continually improve energy performance.

Introduced by the government to improve energy performance and meet EU legislation, ESOS (Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme) specifies that businesses with more than 250 employees, €50 million or more in annual turnover and/or a balance sheet exceeding €43 million must undertake an ESOS energy assessment every four years.

Terry Coyle, ISO 50001 Product Manager for SGS said, “Companies needed to comply with ESOS by the end of 2015, but organisations that chose the ESOS assessment route will still need to undertake energy assessments for each future four year phase of ESOS. Accredited certification to ISO 50001 on the other hand, is built into the organisations practises and processes which requires ongoing maintenance by the organisation and monitoring by the certification body, but provided 100% of the energy use is covered by ISO 50001, they are then exempt from future ESOS energy assessments and there is no need to appoint a lead assessor to oversee future compliance.”

SGS have analysed the voluntary questions in the notifications of compliance data released by the Environment Agency (EA); the results of which show a trend that those organisations who complied with ESOS using ISO 50001 energy management systems certification have stronger senior management buy-in for energy saving benchmarks and targets with 54% confirming senior management have discussed the results of their ESOS assessment through ISO 50001, compared to 33% who complied through ESOS assessments. With this senior management buy-in, 97% of the organisations who have complied through ISO 50001 have stated they will act on energy saving measures highlighted through ISO 50001 compared to those organisations who used alternative routes to compliance, which sits at just 11%. This is a vivid confirmation of the benefits of embedding energy management into an organisation’s management practises and processes through the implementation of ISO 50001.

“ISO 50001 provides a more holistic approach to energy management than ESOS assessments and delivers more benefits than any other ESOS compliance route. It’s the only compliance route that is embedded with practices that ensures energy performance improvement and the cost savings that go along with it. If you want to do the bare minimum to meet the ESOS regulation requirements then ESOS assessments will provide this, however, with no requirement to act upon opportunities, organisations may be spending money and not getting anything in return. ISO 50001 is proven to give return on investment,” said Mr Coyle.

The half day workshops offered by the SGS Academy will examine the differences between ESOS energy audits and ISO 50001 – the international standard for energy management systems (EnMS). The workshops will provide participants with an understanding of how to implement ISO 50001 and use their ESOS audit as a foundation to build an EnMS.

Daniel Curling, Manager of the SGS Academy said, “ISO 50001 is the next logical step for organisations that have completed an ESOS assessment and now not only want to realise the cost savings from the opportunities that have been identified, but want to continue to drive energy performance improvement and energy cost reduction. Once a company has undertaken an ESOS energy assessment, a lot of the hard work has been done. Our workshops are aimed at helping delegates figure out where their company fits in and how to bridge the gap to achieve further energy savings.”

Participants who complete the training offered by SGS will learn about how to integrate energy consumption and energy efficiencies gleaned from ESOS assessments into ISO 50001 energy management system. They will also receive a complementary Energy Health Check tool to help them develop an EnMS.

The workshop dates are:

• 25 May – Heathrow
• 23 June – Manchester
• 14 September – Heathrow

The workshops will start at 9am and finish at midday, with the opportunity for networking at the end of the session.

The SGS Academy also offers a range of training in-house, including ISO 50001 introduction and awareness courses, EnMS implementation training, internal EnMS auditor courses and ISO 50001 Lead auditor courses.

For more information about the workshops please visit the following links:
www.sgs.co.uk/esostoiso50001may

www.sgs.co.uk/esostoiso50001june

www.sgs.co.uk/esostoiso50001Sept.

For more information about the other ISO 50001 services that SGS offers please visit www.sgs.co.uk/energy-management.