The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) have announced the launch of a new web-based compliance centre called CampusERC . This progressive site has been “designed as a multifaceted library of resources for college and university environmental officers to keep up with the latest news and information on environmental issues, study best practices in environmental management, view case studies, and better understand what institutions must do to comply with environmental regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”

With thousands of universities and colleges across North America the potential to create more environmentally sustainable institutions of higher learning is tremendous. A resource like CampusERC is a significant step in the right direction; however, actually implementing environmental compliance recommendations is another challenge altogether. Without the proper software to track, collect, and report environmental data it becomes a guessing game concerning which changes are actually proving beneficial and which are missing the mark.

The ideal situation marries a compliance resource site or consulting firm with an environmental management system that has been designed to drive environmental performance. With this sort of comprehensive strategy environmental officers can track their success at a high or granular level - and ultimately provide valuable metrics-based feedback regarding best practices for instituting environmental change.