Silver lining to BU’s environment policy

22 February 2010

New award recognises BU’s commitment to be being a leading environmentally-friendly university.

BU’s continued progress as one of the country’s most environmentally friendly universities has gathered pace after the institution was awarded a Silver Award under the national EcoCampus scheme for higher education.

BU received the award for its effective Environmental Management System (EMS) following a successful external audit of BU procedures and policies by EcoCampus representatives.

“This award demonstrates the University’s ongoing commitment to managing and reducing its environmental impact,” said Amanda Williams, BU’s Environmental Officer. “We have developed targets for carbon management, water reduction, waste management and recycling, transport, construction and procurement and are working on other areas.

“The Silver Award underlines the commitment of BU’s senior management to reducing the University’s environmental impact and ensuring its environmental sustainability for years to come,” she continued.

David Willey, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chair of BU’s Environmental Strategy Group, added: “Environmental management is increasingly a major strategic issue facing all organisations. Achieving the Silver Award is a recognition of the progress we have made at BU to date.”

Funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), EcoCampus encourages, rewards and provides tools to assist universities in moving towards environmental sustainability and good operational and management practices. EcoCampus also benchmarks environmental improvement.

Through the scheme, BU has built on its previous work in environmental management to develop the framework for enacting a more structured approach to improving the institution’s environmental performance.

Work is now well underway at BU towards achieving the Gold standard, which will focus on roles and responsibility, competence awareness and training, operational control, and emergency preparedness and response.

Bournemouth is the first University from a cohort of 12 that started the EcoCampus programme in November 2008 to have achieved the Silver Award. BU achieved the Bronze Award last summer.