Innovation September-October 2013

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Sustainable Energy Management It’s a Gold Mine This article outlines the reasons for the New Afton mine’s decision to pursue ISO 50001 certification, along with details of the implementation process to date. It concludes by summarizing the benefits New Afton has realized thus far, and hopes to realize going forward, as a result of the implementation of ISO 50001. ISO 50001 – Why? Mining company New Gold’s objective is to continue to establish itself as a leading intermediate gold producer, focused on the environment, sustainability and generating peer-leading shareholder returns. To achieve this objective, the company has adopted a focus on operating as efficiently as possible, continually improving and utilizing available resources as responsibly as possible. While energy efficiency improvement projects are essential, they are not, in themselves, sustainable. There is a step change in efficiency as soon as a project is completed, but efficiency drops off again over time if the systems to support energy efficiency are not there. Energy management should be self-sustaining, something that is done by all employees on a daily basis and not just project based. ISO 50001 was seen by the author as a great vehicle to achieve the energy vision at New Afton Mine because of its focus on continual improvement and on building energy management into the culture and systems of a company. New Afton decided to take on the challenge and set a target to be ISO 50001 compliant by December 2013. ISO 50001 – What? ISO 50001 is intended to provide organizations with a recognized framework for integrating energy performance into their management practices. Multinational organizations will have Andrew Cooper, P.Eng.

access to a single, harmonized standard for implementation across the organization with a logical and consistent methodology for identifying and implementing improvements. The standard is intended to accomplish the following: • 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; • 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. ISO 50001 starts with an energy policy, and while the standard is pretty prescriptive about what needs to be in the policy, it’s important to personalize it. New Afton’s energy policy aims to manage energy as efficiently as possible, to continually improve energy performance and to utilize resources as responsibly as possible. Like other ISO standards, ISO 50001 works on the Plan-Do- Check-Act Cycle. It requires an organization to: • Conduct an energy review, which involves analyzing en- ergy data, identifying areas of significant energy use and areas for energy performance improvement. • Establish an energy baseline.

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