I have a situation where though there’s an organization wide target to achieve say 10% reduction in Power consumption as objectives, one of the units / location of the company had already pro-actively worked towards the power consumption initiative, right from the time the location was setup and that was way before the ISO 14K started in the company.

So that particular unit may not be able to contribute significantly towards the objective as further reduction in power consumption may not be possible. In that case pre and post implementation results at that location would not show any improvement! How can this be interpreted or get affected during audits. Would audits perceive this location as separate entity or would it typically try to assess the entire organization. As such all locations are under the scope of certifications.

How can this be interpreted or get affected during audits. Would audits perceive this location as separate entity or would it typically try to assess the entire organization. As such all locations are under the scope of certifications.Any auditor worth their salt would understand the situation. The site should not be penalized for being proactive and ahead of the curve, with a different energy savings baseline from the rest of the corporation. So, imo, when it comes to that specific objective, the fact that specific site can no longer support further energy savings due to the Law of Diminishing Returns, should be a non-issue for an external auditor performing an EMS audit. S/he should focus the attention on others objectives and targets.

In cases like these where there is a corporate goal to go from their current state to an improved state, my company has recognized that the multiple sites are starting down this improvement pathway from different points.

Each site assesses their current state and the typical site goal is to reduce the gap by 20%. Meaning that the further from the goal you are, the more work you will be doing...grabbing the low hanging fruit and kicking off the bigger projects. As you get closer to the goal, you are looking for those finer details and aspects which will carry you across the finish line.