The University of Missouri-Rolla, the only university in the United States with an ISO-14001-certified campuswide Environmental Management System, has been selected by the Environmental Protection Agency to help promote EMS within college and university communities and in public sectors.

The University of Missouri-Rolla, the only university in the United States with an ISO-14001-certified campuswide Environmental Management System, has been selected by the Environmental Protection Agency to help promote EMS within college and university communities and in public sectors.

The EPA designated UMR as a Local Resource Center for the National Public Entities Environmental Management System Resource (PEER) Center. In this capacity, UMR representatives will provide informational resources to public entities, including municipalities, military installations, non-profit organizations and public schools.

"UMR is recognized as a national leader with a mature EMS program," says Dr. Harvest Collier, director of the UMR Institute for Environmental Excellence and vice provost of undergraduate and graduate studies at UMR. Collier serves as chair of the EMS Work Group of the EPA Colleges and Universities Sector Strategies Program. Other universities in the work group include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, the University of Michigan and Kansas State University.

The United States has roughly 4,000 colleges and universities, which often resemble small cities. The EMS work group recently sent letters to presidents and chancellors around the country in an attempt to encourage them to promote environmental stewardship within their organizations.

Systems to manage environments help colleges and universities, local governments, and corporations prevent pollution and operate more efficiently.

According to Collier, energy use, water quality, hazardous waste disposal, chemical storage and recycling issues all need to be managed within a community. And better management practices tend to improve regulatory compliance and encourage cost savings.

"A lot of corporations use EMS as a tool to drive cost savings," says Amy Gillman, EMS program manager for the UMR Institute for Environmental Excellence and assistant to the vice provost of undergraduate and graduate studies at UMR. "The campus has used its EMS to raise awareness and improve performance. The cost savings came as a result."

UMR first got serious about managing its environment in 1997, when the university was found to be in violation of an EPA regulation for improperly storing hazardous waste and faced a fine. According to Gillman, UMR proposed to develop a comprehensive EMS in lieu of the fine.

After successfully implementing an EMS certified by the International Organization of Standardization (IS0 14001), the campus created the UMR Institute for Environmental Excellence. The institute has worked to make improvements in laboratory environments on campus, created funding for campuswide recycling projects, conducted EMS outreach activities, supported environmental curriculum development and promoted research related to the environment.

More information about EMS and UMR’s involvement as a Local Resource Center is available at www.peercenter.net .

The EMS work group has established a website designed to assist colleges and universities with the planning and implementation phases of EMS development at http://CampusEMS.org.

And more information about UMR’s Institute for Environmental Excellence and its new partnership with EPA is online at: campus.mst.edu/iee/.