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UCL celebrates achieving EcoCampus Platinum accreditation

By Benjamin Meunier, on 9 July 2018

UCL is celebrating achieving EcoCampus Platinum accreditation to the new ISO14001: 2015 standard following a successful external audit on our Environmental Sustainability Management System.

The Environmental Sustainability Management System (ESMS) is at the heart of embedding sustainability across the university.  It offers a systematic and transparent way of managing our environmental objectives and targets, reducing the impacts and supporting compliance against environmental legislation. You can find out more about the UCL ESMS here.

The accreditation is a huge accomplishment as it covers all activities across all of UCL’s UK operation. Having previously attained compliance to the 2004 standard, achieving the 2015 standard further demonstrates the commitment and leadership for sustainability which exists at the university.

The UCL Sustainability Team have sent a thank you to all the staff, departments and partners involved in the audit process, who took time to demonstrate how the ESMS is embedded throughout UCL – from catering to laboratories, from libraries to construction sites. Within our department, the work of the Library Services Sustainability Committee is crucial to coordinate our sustainability work. By taking part in Green Impact every year since the initiative was launched, Library Services colleagues (members of the committee, but also many staff who have demonstrated commitment to environmental sustainability outside of this group) have supported this accreditation. At a recent site visit in one of UCL’s newly refurbished biomedical buildings, I noticed that the open plan office included an area for their local “Green Impact” achievements and resources. The shelf was rather sparse as the team had only recently moved in but some of the resources in pride of place were UCL Press monographs on the role of the city in Sustainable Food Systems and on Articness and how the people on the Arctic are experiencing global change…

UCL is not resting on its laurels, and work to improve our sustainability continues. Site libraries are working to submit the Green Impact worksheets for 2018 this week, and we will present a complete departmental return to the UCL Sustainability team in future years. This will help to continue to recognise our engagement and continuous improvement in environmental matters whilst minimising the bureaucracy around our annual submissions.

Well done to all involved in work on Green Impact or sustainability more generally – this award is a significant achievement for UCL as a whole and, as can show from our annual performance in Green Impact, Library Services colleagues have been actively involved in this success.

Certificate EcoCampus Platinum – UCL

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