The availability of energy for technical processes is a prerequisite for modern industrial societies. The current global level of wealth and the producing industry couldn’t exist without a stable and secure supply of energy. Until the late 20th century energy was considered to be abundantly available due to cheap prices and a stable supply. Policymakers started to change their opinion when the oil crisis of 1973 took place. Due to the rise of emerging economies like China, the global demand for energy increased at the beginning of the 21st century and therefore the prices did. While some companies with high energy consumption tried to improve their energy efficiency to lower production costs, emerging regulations nowadays force them to cope with energy topics. Those circumstances did also influence the development of management systems: The beginning made the publication of the ISO 14001 environmental management norm by the International Organization for Standardization in the mid 90ies. The system was a success and is widely used within different industries. In 2009 the EN 16001 energy management norm was created as a European Standard for energy management. In 2011 the ISO 50001 could be presented as an international standard for an energy management system. This work is dedicated to the new ISO norm. It starts with a short overview on management systems and the history of the ISO 50001. Because there is no scientific literature available yet, this work includes a detailed comparison between the ISO 14001 environmental management norm and the ISO 50001. Furthermore expert interviews were conducted with several early adopters out of different energy intensive industries. The relations between the ISO 140001 and 50001 and the first experiences of Austrian companies are used to develop a generic concept for the implementation of the ISO 50001 into an organization. The work concludes with recommendations for further research activities and a summary of the most important findings.