Towards an energy management maturity model Pedro Antunes a , Paulo Carreira a,b,n , Miguel Mira da Silva b a INESC-ID, Rua Alves Redol, 9, 1000-029 Lisboa, Portugal b Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Doutor Aníbal Cavaco Silva, 2744-016 Porto Salvo, Portugal HIGHLIGHTS  Real-world energy management activities are not aligned with the literature.  An Energy Management Maturity Model is proposed to overcome this alignment gap.  The completeness and relevance of proposed model are validated. article info Article history: Received 20 January 2014 Received in revised form 12 April 2014 Accepted 9 June 2014 Keywords: Energy management Maturity model ISO 50001 abstract Energy management is becoming a priority as organizations strive to reduce energy costs, conform to regulatory requirements, and improve their corporate image. Despite the upsurge of interest in energy management standards, a gap persists between energy management literature and current implemen- tation practices. This gap can be traced to the lack of an incremental improvement roadmap. In this paper we propose an Energy Management Maturity Model that can be used to guide organizations in their energy management implementation efforts to incrementally achieve compliance with energy management standards such as ISO 50001. The proposed maturity model is inspired on the Plan-Do- Check-Act cycle approach for continual improvement, and covers well-understood fundamental energy management activities common across energy management texts. The completeness of our proposal is then evaluated by establishing an ontology mapping against ISO 50001. & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Energy management has been defined as the systematic use of management and technology to improve an organization's energy performance (CarbonTrust, 2011) or, in academic research, as the control, monitoring and improvement activities for energy effi- ciency (Bunse et al., 2011). Regardless of definition, the topic has become of utmost importance for organizations worldwide, many of which are currently deploying energy management solutions to improve their energy use, to comply with legislation, energy standards and their requirements, and to enhance the organiza- tion's reputation among customers. By implementing energy management programs, organizations can save up to 20% on their energy bill, and can also achieve savings up to 5%–10% with minimal investment, effectively cutting operational costs (CarbonTrust, 2011). Energy management and its associated practices vary greatly mainly because there is no well-understood energy management model, as evidenced by the disparity in the reviewed literature. As will be clear later, despite the existence of several guides to assist companies in implementing energy management activities (CarbonTrust, 2011; Sustainable Energy Ireland, 2008), case- studies show that real-world implementations of energy manage- ment programs fail to cover the breadth of energy activities defined in these guides (Gonzalez et al., 2012; Coppinger, 2010). In summary, there is a gap between theory and real-world implementation practices of energy management that needs to be closed. This paper proposes and conducts a preliminary evaluation of an Energy Management Maturity Model, meant for energy man- agers in all kinds of organizations, that organizes the essential energy management activities across five maturity levels, there- fore contributing to bridge the gap between theory and real-world practice. Overall, for an organization, an Energy Management Maturity Model will: (i) structure and improve the understanding Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol Energy Policy http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.06.011 0301-4215/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. n Corresponding author at: Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Doutor Aníbal Cavaco Silva, 2744-016 Porto Salvo, Portugal. Tel.: þ351 21 310 0300. E-mail addresses: pedro.miguel.antunes@tecnico.ulisboa.pt (P. Antunes), paulo.carreira@tecnico.ulisboa.pt (P. Carreira), mms@tecnico.ulisboa.pt (M. Mira da Silva). Please cite this article as: Antunes, P., et al., Towards an energy management maturity model. Energy Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.06.011i Energy Policy ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎