Ensuring top management responsibility involves two tasks:

• 1.9.1 Brief top management on their EnMS responsibilities
• 1.9.2 Plan for how top management will meet their responsibilities

1.9.1 Brief top management on their EnMS responsibilities

Top management has ten key responsibilities that it must perform in order to demonstrate its commitment to supporting the EnMS and continually improving its effectiveness. Several of these responsibilities have already been discussed in Step 1. The responsibilities include:

1. Defining and deploying an energy policy and updating it as needed (Step 1.7, Step 5.1);
2. Appointing a management representative and authorizing an energy team (Step 1.4, Step 1.5);
3. Allocating the resources needed to set-up, operate and improve the EnMS and energy performance (Step 3.1, Step 5.1);
4. Identifying the EnMS scope and boundaries (Step 1.6);
5. Communicating the importance of energy across the organization (Step 1.8, Step 3.4, Step 5.2);
6. Ensuring that objectives and targets for improving energy performance are established (Step 2.9);
7. Using appropriate energy performance indicators (EnPIs) (Step 2.7);
8. Considering energy performance in strategic planning;
9. Ensuring the measurement and reporting of results at defined intervals (Step 5.1);
10. Conducting management reviews (Step 5.1)

Briefing top management on their EnMS responsibilities is typically done by the management representative. Consider including members of the energy team in the briefing to ensure that everyone is “on the same page.” An effective approach can be to schedule the briefing as part of an existing management meeting. Alternatively, the briefing could be part of a larger ISO 50001 training event conducted for top management, the management representative and members of the energy team by an external training provider, if appropriate.

At this point in the process, copies of the ISO 50001-2011 standard should have already been purchased and distributed among members of top management and the energy team. Any discussion of EnMS requirements should be based on Section 4 (Energy management system requirements) of the ISO 50001-2011 Standard.

1.9.2 Plan for how top management will meet their responsibilities

One outcome of the briefing to top management should be a plan for how top management will meet their responsibilities during initial EnMS implementation. For example, in most initial EnMS implementations, it is the energy team that will develop proposed EnPIs and proposed energy objectives and targets. These would then be reviewed and approved by top management before they become a formal part of the EnMS. It is recommended that as part of project management for the initial implementation, submission to top management of final work product (output) for specific elements of the EnMS be included in the project milestones. (See Project Management for EnMS Implementation for information on the basics of project planning.)

After initial implementation when the EnMS is operational, the management review process will be the forum for ensuring that top management meets and can demonstrate its responsibilities (see Step 5.1). The exception to this is the consideration of energy performance in strategic planning. To meet this requirement, management will need to establish a process that ensures (and has records) that energy performance is among the inputs gathered and considered in the organization’s long term planning process.

Information on the basics of project management is provided in Project Management for EnMS Implementation.

The following resources provide information needed to understand EnMS documentation and make decisions on what documents and records are needed for your EnMS. Now that you have completed Step 1, this is a good time to review these resources if you have not done so already.

• Understanding EnMS Documentation
• EnMS Documentation Guidance Table
• Energy Manual Guidelines

The following resource is designed primarily for organizations that plan to seek third-party certification to ISO 50001-2011. It helps you understand how to check and use your EnMS records to demonstrate the implementation of the system (you are doing what you say), and the effectiveness of the system in generating the intended results (what you are doing is working).

• EnMS Records: Check and Use the Evidence

Single license electronic copies of the ISO 50001 standard can be purchased from GTESS.

Site licenses (for posting on internal networks) can be purchased from ANSI.