An energy management maturity model for China: Linking ISO 50001:2018 and domestic practices

Abstract Well-structured Energy Management Maturity Models (EMMMs) are advanced and easy-to-use energy management (EM) approaches for energy management systems (EnMSs), providing both qualitative metrics and improvement guidelines. And the metrics serve the most valuable role. To furnish the users in different contexts (regional or industrial) with optimal applicability, an EMMM should deliver the most specific, precise, and valid metrics. It requires the latest explorations of this domain to evolve from the existing prototypes and keep improving the theoretical hypotheses about EM maturation, particularly for emerging economies like China. Accordingly, this study attempts to propose a highly practice-based Energy Management Maturity Model for China (EMMM-China), intending to make twofold contributions to this domain. For the methodological perspective, this study has demonstrated a set of highly referable strategies to felicitously formulate a model`s metrics. A solid knowledge base for deducing hypotheses, encompassing both EM imperfections and good practices, was crucially constructed by taking in empirical experience from scientific literature and over 70 domestic cases. On this basis, five maturity levels and four maturation phases were justifiably defined. To validate the reliability of the model, three industrial cases were repeatedly assessed by EMMM-China in a longitudinal study design. And for the outcome perspective, EMMM-China serves as a new ISO 50001-based model for global users. The High Level Structure (HLS) of ISO 50001:2018 and numerous widely recognized success factors for EM were both adopted. With extended knowledge that goes beyond EnMS standards, EMMM-China enables long-term applicability to even certified organizations. The proposed model is believed to work on China and other emerging economies as a referable meta-approach.