AstraZeneca’s Gaithersburg campus became the first biomedical facility in the world to achieve SEP 50001 at the silver performance level, improving its energy performance 8.5% over three years and saving $420,000 on energy bills annually.
Advanced Manufacturing & Industrial Decarbonization
November 3, 2021
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AstraZeneca’s Gaithersburg campus re-certified to SEP 50001 in 2020, improving energy performance 5.2% over three years. Photo credit: AstraZeneca
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recognizes AstraZeneca's Gaithersburg campus for its recertification to in the Superior Energy Performance 50001 (SEP 50001) program and additional Gold-level achievement. SEP 50001 is a U.S. DOE-administered certification and recognition program for facilities that use an ISO 50001 energy management system and verify achieved energy performance improvement. The campus consists of ten buildings: six offices, two combined office and research spaces, a manufacturing lab that produces experimental medications for clinical trials, and a daycare center for the children of employees. Collectively, these buildings house a workforce of approximately 3,600 people. In 2014, AstraZeneca's Gaithersburg campus became the first biomedical facility in the world to achieve SEP 50001 certification at the Silver performance level, improving its energy performance 8.5% over three years and saving $420,000 on energy bills annually. Since then, the Gaithersburg campus has steadily improved its energy and carbon performance. The site improved its three-year energy performance by 8.5% in 2014, 8.9% in 2017, and 5.2% in its latest recertification.
To achieve the SEP 50001 certification, the campus used an energy management system to meet the ISO 50001 standard requirements, tracked its energy performance improvement, and had the results independently verified. The site's recent 2020 recertification and Gold-level recognition reflects an ongoing commitment to energy management and affirms the power of a robust energy management system to continuously improve energy performance and expand savings year after year.
"It's 2021, and many new options are around to optimize performance and efficiency," said Mike Dieterich, Associate Director Energy & Sustainability, AstraZeneca. "ISO 50001 and SEP 50001 help us find valuable opportunities, gain management support, and meet our targets."
As the Gaithersburg energy team continues to pursue energy improvements through the SEP 50001 framework, the team members increasingly appreciate the transferability of its energy management best practices to meeting waste and water goals. AstraZeneca's ambitious goals pushed the Gaithersburg campus to break new ground for biomedical facilities by achieving first Silver status (2014) then Gold (2017 and 2020) under SEP 50001. In turn, these achievements support new corporate policies to accelerate progress toward the company's zero-carbon goal.
DOE's SEP 50001 program, managed by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office, offers certification and elevated levels of recognition to facilities that achieve sustained excellence in energy management.
Learn more about how SEP 50001 benefits AstraZeneca's Gaithersburg campus.