After a corporate review at its headquarters and the visit of an independent audit committee to the Radomiro Tomic, Salvador and El Teniente divisions, Chilean copper mining giant Codelco says it has achieved the ISO 50001 international certification on energy management systems, a standard that specifies practices and processes in public and private companies to improve their performance in energy use and consumption.

This milestone transforms Codelco into the first large mining company to achieve ISO 50001 both corporately and in a multi-site sense in Chile. While other companies have an independent Energy Management System (EMS) for each operation, Codelco has a single standard to monitor the efficient use of energy, identify and apply savings initiatives, and establish clear goals for all of its various work centres.

“Receiving this recognition reaffirms our commitment to being industry leaders in energy efficiency. This, added to the recent achievement of The Copper Mark seal, concretely shows our effort to have environmentally responsible production, in line with our purpose of being a pillar for the sustainable development of Chile and the world,” says Rubén Alvarado, Executive President of Codelco.

Mauricio Acuña, Vice President of Supply of the state company, adds: “An internationally certified Energy Management System means that we are applying the best standards in the industry, which implies energy savings and, therefore, directly impacts the costs of our operations.”

The path to obtaining ISO 50001 began a year ago with the process of updating the SGE that already existed in Codelco. To achieve this, energy management was incorporated into the Sustainability Policy and a simplified system was sought, in which the divisions would be in charge of improving their energy performance with the practices and tools provided by the Operational Excellence area.

The audit process, carried out by the certification company Bureau Veritas, consisted of two stages: the first involved collecting and reviewing corporate records from the headquarters and the second was carried out on the ground at the Radomiro Tomic, Salvador and El Teniente divisions, chosen randomly as representative samples. The accreditation covers a period of three years, both in the corporate and in the eight divisions, after which the reviewing entity will audit and visit other work centres again to verify the operation and functioning of the management system.