24 May 2017 -- IBM received a 2017 Energy Management Insight Award from the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), a global forum sponsored by 24 national governments and the European Commission that promotes policies and programs to advance clean energy. We earned the award for producing a case study to share insights on the process and benefits of setting up an energy management system certified to the global ISO 50001 standard. The ISO 50001 standard is a framework to help companies manage and continually improve their energy performance and realize cost and emission reductions.
In its case study, IBM describes key aspects of its ISO 50001-certified energy management system and identifies resulting benefits, including the following:
- Increased participation in the energy management process by the business units responsible for data centers, IT labs, and hardware product assembly operations
- Improved consistency in global operating procedures and results through greater collaboration among units and locations
- Enhanced global training program
- Improved preventative maintenance results through enhanced internal processes and better management of sensors, meters and controls
"The rigor and discipline required to maintain registration of IBM's global EMS to ISO 50001 have contributed to our successes and driven continual improvement of our energy management program," said Wayne Balta, vice president, IBM corporate environmental affairs and product safety. "For example, we have increased our focus on innovative analytics-based technologies to minimize energy consumption in real time, and anticipate and correct potential problems before they affect energy use."
Within one year of the issuance of the ISO standard, we achieved ISO 50001 registration of our energy management program at the corporate level as an integral component of IBM's global environmental management system. Following our successful ISO 50001 registration at the corporate level, many of IBM's major energy-consuming locations and one country organization received registration of their specific energy programs under IBM's single global ISO 50001 certification.