Environment is an increasingly critical issue for further and higher education institutions (FHEIs).

Dealing with these issues effectively and consistently over time is not easy. Good environmental management is essential. One means of ensuring that this happens is to introduce an environmental management system (EMS). This provides a means of:

• identifying all relevant environmental issues and assigning responsibility for dealing with them
• developing and implement standard procedures for managing them
• achieving continuous improvement through target setting and other means.

Although organisations are free to develop any EMS which suits their purposes, many choose to follow the model of one or both of the two main EMS standards:

The International Standards Organisation's standard, ISO 14001 scheme

The Eco-Management and Audit (EMAS) scheme of the European Union - this goes further than ISO by requiring publication of a report on environmental performance.

ISO is generally more popular than EMAS (and has been adopted by all the FHEIs going down this route) but some European universities have achieved EMAS. The Best Practice section provides more information.

Being registered to these schemes requires a high degree of organisation, and some expense. The EcoCampus scheme is developing a staged approach which can be used by FHEIs to make progress towards a fully recognised EMS.