News | Thursday, 3rd March 2016
First UK University to Achieve ISO14001:2015
Manchester Met is the first UK University to achieve the newly revised and more challenging international Environmental Management System (EMS) standard- ISO14001:2015, demonstrating a clear commitment to managing and improving our environmental performance.
Over the last three years, the EMS has been implemented using the phased method of the EcoCampus scheme, which has provided a structured approach to work towards the ISO standard.
Alex Hobbins, Project Manager, EcoCampus, says, “this achievement indicates that the EMS is fully embedded, demonstrating the commitment to improve environmental performance”.
A three-day external audit involved two auditors from the global certification company NQA interviewing a wide range of staff, reviewing our Environmental Policy around strategy undertaking a number of site visits, and checking our environmental procedures and legal compliance.
Richard Walsh, Lead Assessor, from the NQA Audit Team commented, “It is very clear that the University at all levels takes its commitment to environment management fully on board and has put itself at the forefront of sustainable development in the higher education sector.”
Paul Kingsmore, Director of Services and Chair of the University’s Environmental Strategy Board said “Being the first University to achieve the standard is a great achievement, and demonstrates our continued commitment to place environmental sustainability firmly at the heart of our strategic leadership and business operations”.
Helena Tinker, Environment and Energy Systems Manager adds, “we are extremely proud and the auditors praised our proactive actions and our approach to embedding environmental sustainability into our organisation. Achieving the standard is credit to the hard work of everyone involved.”
The standard
The newly revised standard is designed to respond to latest trends and ensure it is compatible with other management system standards.
The key changes relate to increased prominence of environmental management within the organisation’s strategic planning processes, greater focus on leadership and the addition of proactive initiatives to protect the environment from harm and degradation.
How we fared?
We were commended as having a very successful audit, particularly, our compliance with the requirements of the new criteria, the evident strength of commitment and engagement across the organisation, leadership, and our proactive actions and initiatives.
Manchester Met has demonstrated that we have an effective ‘systematic and process driven approach’– meaning that we can demonstrate how we control aspects of University business that have or could potentially have a significant impact on the environment. The standard is founded on the principal of continuous improvement and the Deming Cycle to ‘plan, do, check, and act’.
John Hindley and Helena Tinker would like to thank everyone involved in achieving this result.
