INVERSIONES DE LA ANDE EN LA ENTIDAD BINACIONAL YACYRETÁ

The public is becoming increasingly aware of the issue of sustainable development as we enjoy a life style full of technological breakthroughs and other developments, which made our lives easier and more comfortable. The need of an environmental legacy has grown in the past century and the standard-writing bodies got many concerns and requests for producing a standard for managing the environmental impacts of an organization.

The first result to all the requests related to environmental management in businesses was, when the world renowned institution, British Standards Institute (BSI) in connection with others, developed and issued the BS 7750:1992, which is today told to be the world’s first environmental standard. Nevertheless, this was not the first national standard, as other similar national standards were in existence in various countries. After publishing the world-wide demand getting accreditation and a certificate to an international standard, began to grow.

Later the ISO (the International Standards Organization) established a new technical committee to develop international standards in environmental management. The need for the standard to be applicable to manufacturing and services industries has risen, as it was fulfilling the needs of all sizes of businesses. The need to avoid trade barriers, as well as different approaches to legal requirements and their enforcement throughout the world, demanded a generic approach.

Today, one of the world wide known and used standards is the ISO 14001:1996 (ISO 14001:2004) environmental standard. In Slovenia more than 400 companies are certified to this standard. It was first published in 1996 and later reviewed in 2004. Seeking all the advantages standardization can bring to a certain company it went further, as unwanted environmental problems emerged due to high energy consumption and high electricity prices that had their side effects in emissions production.

As a result of well-managing energy costs and emissions, amounts of spent energy generated from non-renewable resources decreased and the idea of an energy management system and standard arose. Sustainable development meant managing its business well, environmentally friendly with low energy consumption what caused the development of a new world standard according specially to energy (energy management), the ISO 50001:2011 which was issued in June 2011.

In Europe, energy standards were introduced and brought into use first in Denmark; Denmark is considered being a pioneer in the sense of issuing a national energy standard. Many other European countries followed as soon as 2003, a Swedish standard was launched, followed by an Irish standard in 2005 and a Spanish one in 2007. A high level of participation was required for the development of these standards as standards require the consent and consensus of all parties concerned. The response to the standards in certain countries following their release was very high. The success of national standards led to the formation of a working group of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) in 2006 to address this topic. Supported by the European Commission, which sees the standardization of EnMS as an important step towards increasing energy efficiency in European industry, EN 16001:2009 was compiled within a short time period under the leadership of Sweden. On 10 September 2009 the EN 16001:2009 was introduced to the public at an event in Brussels. Even before the official release of the new

33 European Energy Management Standard, the first companies conforming to this standard were certified to EN 16001:2009. In the meantime, many other countries outside of Europe developed similar standards. The standardization process has since been initiated at a global level.

The International Standards Organization got a request from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO, Win the Energy Challenge with ISO 50001, pg. 13) to develop an international energy standard by the time the need to an effective response to climate change expanded. A project committee named ISO/PC 242 led by the United States (American National Standards Institute – ANSI) and Brazil (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas – ABNT) was created with the task to carry out the work.

ISO specifies that experts from 44 member countries participated on it and further other 14 countries experts observed their work. With the wide choice of including the experts of numerous countries the reflection was the ability of the experts to implement or to take into account their own energy standards guidelines (including the ones developed in China, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Republic of Korea, Netherlands, Sweden, Thailand, the USA and the European Union, (ISO, 2011, 13).

Table 8: Time-line of energy standards development

2000 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011

Source: Umwelt Bundes Amt for our environment. DIN EN 16001: Energy Management Systems in Practice.

Systematic energy management is used worldwide as good energy management identifies where the energy saving potential lies. There are great advantages of having or following the standards main guidelines in business as exploiting such a potential reduces administrative costs and increases one’s own competitiveness.

The EN 16001:2009 is marked as an important starting point for the formulation of ISO 50001:2011; every company that is certified to EN 16001:2009 thus has a good basis for future international requirements on the ISO 50001:2011.

34 5.2. Comparing Environmental and Energy Standards

Table 9 gives us a good overview, as a comparison among standards is possible. Each company can make a distinction and decide which standard suits best to its business. As we have seen a large amount of Slovenian companies already being certified to the environmental standard ISO 14001:2004, we included it to the table as we believe that both aspects of energy and of environment are linked to each other and very important for our future.

Table 9: Comparison of environmental and energy standards SUBJECT

LEGAL STATUS Under no legal bases.

(International: worldwide)

AREA VALIDITY WORLD EUROPEAN UNION WORLD EUROPEAN UNION

SECTOR VALIDITY All organizations. For specific

organizations in industry;

it can be nevertheless adopted by other organizations.

All organizations. All organizations; any size or sector.

SECTOR

PARTICIPATION First published in 1996,

again in 2004. From 2001. From 2011. From 2009.

9 EMAS is completely compatible with the international standard for environmental management systems, ISO 14001, but is perceived to go further in its requirements for performance improvement, employee involvement, legal compliance and communication with stakeholders.

10 European Economic Area.

35 By deciding for ISO 14001:2004 certification, a company is required to identify the environmental aspects of their business activities, products or services with a further evaluation of impacts on the environment and by doing so, objectives and targets can be set for controlling significant impacts and for improving overall environmental performance.

The ISO 14001:2004 specifies the EMS requirements as other standards; there are certain tasks which have to be met in order to achieve certification by a third party – the certification body.

Similar it is with ISO 50001:2011 only that the organization is required to identify aspects of their activities regarding to energy consumption.

Energy Certificates in Europe

Hypothesis two predicted that there are less energy certificates per capita in Slovenia compared to other European countries.

Table 9 shows that in Slovenia we have 7 organizations certificated to EN 16001:2009 and ISO 50001:2001, together counting up 8 certificates; 4 of them are ISO 50001:2011. The organization Acroni d.o.o. is certified to both, the EN 16001:2009 and the ISO 50001:2011.

Picture no. 1: ISO 50001:2011 certified sites in Europe

Source: http://www.arqum.de

According to the picture, hypothesis two can be straightaway rejected and is so fully false.

Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary and some other, in population larger countries, have fewer certified sites than Slovenia. EUs leading and way a head country is Germany with 453 certified sites to ISO 50001:2011.

36 5.3. Basic Principles of Energy Management Systems in ISO 50001

The International Standards Organization (ISO) counts up to now 160 national standards from countries all over the world, no matter the economic development. It specifies (ISO, 2011, 2) that it has over 18.600 standards giving government and non-government businesses as well to the society tools regarding the achievement of all dimensions of sustainable development and contributing to a better world.

With the voluntary international standard, the ISO 50001:2011 is giving companies all sizes and sectors, the requirements for energy management systems (EnMS). The ISO expects targeting broad applicability across national economic sectors, with an estimation of the standards influence up to 60-percent (ISO, 2011, 2) of the world’s energy use.

It is expected that the standard will bring all types of organizations management strategies regarding energy efficiency, cost reduction and improvement of energy performance. It will be used for certification/registration and/or self-declaration of an organizations energy management system. It will not establish absolute requirements for energy performance beyond the commitments in the energy policy of the organization and its obligation to comply with relevant legislation.

The purpose of ISO 50001 does not differ from the EN 16001 guidelines, as its prime goals are to establish the systems and processes necessary to improve energy performance, energy efficiency and intensity, reduce costs, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts. Both standards are applicable to all sizes of organizations irrespective of any geographical, cultural or social conditions. How successful the implementation is, depends mostly on the level of commitment on all organizational levels and functions, especially on the top management.

It specifies requirements for an energy management system (EnMS) to develop and implement an energy policy, establish objectives, targets and action plans which take into account legal requirements and information pertaining to significant energy use. An EnMS enables an organization to achieve its policy commitments, take action as needed to improve its energy performance and demonstrate the conformity of the system to the requirements. The application of the standard can of course be tailored to fit the needs and requirements of each organization independently. The ISO 50001:2011 was designed to be used independently but it can be aligned or integrated with other management systems. It applies to all organizations and to all factors affecting energy use that can be monitored and influenced by the organization. It will be used for certification/registration or self-declaration of an organization`s energy management system. As it does not establish absolute requirements for energy performance, two organizations carrying out similar operations but having different energy performance can both conform to its requirements.

The standard is intended to accomplish the following (ISO, 2011, 4):

- assist organizations in making better use of their existing energy consuming assets;

- create transparency and facilitate communication on the management of energy resources;

- promote energy management best practices and reinforce good energy management behaviours;

37 - assist facilities in evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new energy-efficient

technologies;

- provide a framework for promoting energy efficiency throughout the supply chain;

- facilitate energy management improvements for greenhouse gas emission reduction projects;

- allow integration with other organizational management systems such as environmental, and health and safety.

The requirements of the ISO 50001:2011 are (ISO, 2011, 4):

- development of an energy policy; energy manual;

- energy management representative and energy management team;

- identification of energy aspects and evaluation of associated environmental impact;

- establishment of relevant legal and regulatory requirements;

- development and maintenance of energy objectives and targets;

- implementation of a documented system, including elements of training, operational controls and dealing with emergencies;

- monitoring and measurement of operational activities;

- monitoring, energy internal auditing, corrective and preventive actions, management reviews;

- management reviews of the system to ensure its continuing effectiveness and suitability.

In general it can be implemented individually or with any other ISO standard, nevertheless following the guidelines, making a self-declaration with the Plan-Do-Check-Act for continual process, without the accreditation, brings its internal and external benefits of an overall higher energy performance and energy efficiency to any organization.

Figure 5: Basic principle of an EnMS: Plan-Do-Check-Act

Source: http://www.leyhill.com/ourtoolkit/en16001.html

The basic principle defined by Plan-Do-Check-Act is explained as (ISO, 2011, 8):

38 - Plan: conduct the energy review and establish the baseline, energy performance indicators (EnPIs), objectives, targets and action plans necessary to deliver results in accordance with opportunities to improve energy performance and the organization’s energy policy;

- Do: implement the energy management action plans;

- Check: monitor and measure processes and the key characteristics of its operations that determine energy performance against the energy policy and objectives and report the results;

- Act: take actions to continually improve energy performance and the EnMS.

The ISO defines energy standards to be the guide or framework to continual improvement in energy management practices which can be incorporated into the company`s policy and business. They do not guarantee improvements in energy performance nor establish absolute requirements. They give a framework each business can rely on and with making improvements day to day, managing energy well, measuring and checking costs, they can be successful; the aim is putting effective practices in place that can result in measurable energy savings.

In practice, an effective energy management system should result in (ISO, 2011, 5):

- organizations taking action to improve energy efficiency;

- a continual improvement year-by-year and an improved performance in energy usage;

- more thorough analysis of areas with potential for energy saving being carried out, if no action on energy efficiency is being taken.

In general, it is believed that the standard will contribute to (ISO, 2011, 5:

- greater energy supply availability;

- enhanced competitiveness;

- a positive impact on climate change;

- making a green corporate image;

- assuring customers and the public of your commitment to meeting environmental responsibilities;

- to reduce costs;

- reduce raw material and utility costs through improved process efficiency;

- reduce the risk of environmental incidents occurring and minimizing their impact;

- improving staff morale through involvement in environmental improvement initiatives.

In the next subchapter we are going to examine energy efficiency practices and comprehensive solutions in buildings.