Gold award puts Sussex in eco elite
A new accreditation has confirmed Sussex as one of the most environmentally friendly universities in the UK.
Sussex has become one of just 11 UK universities to receive the ‘gold’ accreditation for the EcoCampus Environmental Management System (EMS).
EcoCampus, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), encourages, rewards and provides tools to assist universities in moving towards environmental sustainability and good operational and management practices.
The gold accreditation, achieved last week, means that, in just three years, Sussex has achieved three out of four accreditation levels (bronze, silver, gold and platinum).
Sussex was one of 13 universities to sign up to the scheme in August 2008. The University received bronze accreditation in July 2009 and silver in April 2010.
There are now 46 institutions signed up to the scheme.
Work is now well under way at Sussex towards achieving the platinum award. The ‘checking and reviewing’ phase - to determine whether the University needs to change any of its processes - involves a significant amount of management review and internal auditing. The University has pre-empted this requirement by training a number of staff to advanced auditor standards in accordance with the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment.
Patrick Pica, Energy & Environment Manager at Sussex (and Project Manager for EcoCampus), commented: “The fact that our efforts have received national recognition after careful scrutiny by external auditors demonstrates that we take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and have made significant progress in this area.
“I look forward to working closely with colleagues over the coming year to complete the final stage of certification.”
The University’s commitment to environmental issues and sustainability was underlined earlier this year when the Daily Telegraph named Sussex the top UK university for recycling.