Many of the staff at the University felt that we should do our part to protect the environment. Although we undertake significant environment related research projects across the globe, we were conscious of the need to act (not just talk) in an environmentally friendly way. This would represent, for an organization like the UNU, leadership by example.

Initially, we focused our management efforts on dealing with the direct environmental impacts (i.e., waste, energy, water) of daily operations because we mistakenly believed that that was the main objective of ISO14001. However, after the appointment of the Japan Standards Association as the certifying organization for our environmental management system, we gradually began to appreciate that the indirect impacts of our activities were perhaps more important (i.e. the impacts of our research projects, training programmes and publications). The end result was a dramatic improvement in the system performance and a smoother fit with existing management practices at the UNU.

• Main UNU ISO14001 website (external link)
• UNU ISO14001 poster
• 2002 Environmental Review