Yeah! We have it here! Just came out of the EMS oven! Newcastle University has a fully functioning Environmental Management System implemented!
After years of preparation, and a 4 day environmental audit by NQA, our Environmental Management System (EMS) has been awarded Platinum EcoCampus and registered with ISO14001. Thanks to all of you for your collaboration and effort in making this happen. This is a fantastic achievement for staff and students across campus and, recognises the progress that the University has made in embedding sustainability across its operations.
The EMS journey started in 2008 when the institution registered with EcoCampus and the EMS has been under development ever since. EcoCampus is an environmental management system award scheme specifically aimed at the Higher and Further Education sectors. It takes institutions to implement their EMS step by step with Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards along the way, and Platinum as a finale. The University has made steady progress through accreditation, achieving bronze in September 2009, silver in October 2010, Gold in August 2011and now Platinum and ISO 14001 in July 2012, becoming the UK’s second university in achieving it.
On the third week of July, we received a visit from Margaret Rooney, NQA environmental auditor, who came to examine our EMS. Apart from the paperwork evaluation, we took her to visit some sites across the campus and interview staff. She was highly impressed with our laboratories, maintenance depots, research centres, recycling schemes and biodiversity projects. She showed a lot of interest in the Environmental Coordinator (EC) network and was very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet & chat with some of them. Margaret commented on how much she enjoyed her experience auditing at Newcastle University and, strangely for auditees, we enjoyed it too! As a matter of anecdote, we would highlight the fact that, in the middle of the audit, Daniel and Sean left everything and went to the rescue of a family of lost ducklings that were being bullied by crows. You can check it all in the, as far as we know, first EMS audit recorded live on Twitter so far.
As already said, this is a great achievement for NU community however, the EMS journey doesn’t stop here. Now that we have a fully functioning EMS, we have to work on improving it. We had great feedback from the auditor, with no non conformities raised, but we still have plenty of initiatives in mind and opportunities for improvement to implement before next year’s audit so…let’s get down to the business!! Thank you all very much and keep up the good work!
