ISO 50001 INTERNATIONAL STANDARD IMPLEMENTATION SPECIFICS FOR ENSURING ECONOMIC STABILITY OF INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The paper offers the research findings on the implementation feasibility and specifics of internal energy management in the institutions of higher education (IHE) in Ukraine, based on ISO 50001 international standard requirements as a part of total management system within the government vector of energy saving economy framework. The emphasis is maid on exploring the overall effects on the economic position of institutions of higher education from the growing utility costs burden that influences the education high quality maintenance as well as university competitiveness on the higher education market. Rationale is provided on the validity and commonality of methods, approaches and techniques for the implementation of the internal energy management system in institutions of higher education according to the ISO 50001 standard together with demonstrating the simplicity of the given standard integration into the current management systems. It is argued that on the one hand, the implementation of energy management systems in institutions of higher education assumes certain financial investment and administrative and organizational changes, on the other, it lays the basis for attracting funding for capital projects on infrastructure modernization. The benefits of the new version of the ISO 50001: 2018 standard have been investigated, their tendency to switching to the area of service sector have been specified and the application of its basic approaches to enhance energy management systems of institutions of higher education has been proposed. The study employed the following empirical and theoretical methods: expert analysis (study on the benefits of the international standards ISO 50001 series implementation); systems and analytical (to justify the feasibility of using international standard approaches while making management decisions within IHE). The motivation behind the implementation of IHE integrated management systems based on the requirements of the international standards of the ISO 50001 series has been explored. From the semantic analysis perspective, in the context of the research subject area, a hypothesis about the need to expand the application of ISO 500001 energy management systems has been put forward. During the verification of this hypothesis a relationship between energy saving policy and the IHE economic security has been substantiated. It is argued that energy management system is an organic element in strategic management architecture which affects the competitiveness of IHE.