GW’s new Environmental and Energy Management Institute (EEMI), having been recently chartered as a University-wide Institute by the Advisory Council on Research, has identified eight areas in which to focus its research, educational and service activities.
The overall goal of the EEMI is to be a center of excellence for multidisciplinary research, education and the dissemination of knowledge relevant to the resolution of pressing national and international environmental, energy and sustainability challenges via implementation of the rapidly evolving arsenal of non-regulatory environmental and energy management standards, such as those developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the U.S. Green Building Council and a variety of other public and private organizations. To achieve this vision, the EEMI will conduct research, promote graduate studies and undertake service and policy-inducing activities in the following application areas:
- Managing the organization’s environmental footprint
- Managing the organization’s energy consumption profile
- Reducing the organization’s greenhouse gas emissions
- Planning and managing green cities
- Designing and managing green buildings
- Facilitating the development, manufacture and use of green products
- Planning and managing data centers for energy efficiency
- Promote next generation environmental performance
The research purpose of the EEMI is to improve non-regulatory, standards-based approaches to improving environmental conditions and the management of energy resources, including methodological development, assessment and measurement. This is a broad, multidisciplinary area of investigation that is just beginning to receive substantial attention within Federal environmental, energy and natural resource agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture, as well as the international standards bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The idea behind this area of endeavor is that substantial opportunities exist for improving environmental protection and reducing energy use by finding ways in which corporations and other organizations can go beyond traditional organizational compliance activities to increase environmental performance and improve energy use at minimal cost.
An example of a research target within this broad area involves the augmentation of existing surface water nutrient simulation models using advanced, low cost nutrient sensors implanted throughout watersheds. Data gathered by such sensors could be used not only to improve surface water quality models but also to verify that nutrient reductions achieved by best management practices within watershed-wide water pollution trading programs (similar to the highly successful SO2 and NOx air pollution trading programs) are real, thus reducing a major current barrier to the successes of such trading programs. That barrier has to do with the unwillingness of potential buyers of nutrient discharge credits to pay for unverified nutrient reductions (the “demand side” of current nutrient trading programs). Use of watershed-scale remote sensors in this manner could dramatically expand the implementation of water quality trading programs across the United States and throughout the world. The determination of widely accepted standards for the manufacture and use of such sensors is a critically important factor to the success of such an endeavor, helping the U.S. federal government to move water pollution trading programs forward after more than two decades of struggling with it.
The importance of this research concept was highlighted at a December 5, 2014 meeting hosted by personnel of the proposed EEMI. That meeting, held in the SEAS Dean’s conference room, was attended by more than 20 senior officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Defense Fund and other organizations. The probability for this initiative to provide substantial sponsored research funding from the federal government and non-profit organizations such as the Water Environment Federation, is very high.
This is just one example of a myriad of ripe research opportunities that exist currently in the area of standards-based approaches to improving environmental conditions and better managing energy resources. Other examples appear in the recently published (October 2014) book “Next Generation Environmental Self-Governance” by Leroy Paddock, GW’s Associate Dean for Environmental Law, who has been very actively involved with EEMI activities since the Institute formation efforts began in the summer of 2013, and is serving as the EEMI focus area leader of the “beyond compliance: next generation self-governance” focus area.
The area of standards-based approaches for improving environmental conditions and energy use is an area that is relatively unexploited by other programs within GW or other academic institutions, despite the fact that it is a potentially very large area of endeavor. The topic covers literally hundreds of application areas, including the growing application areas covered by the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) 14000 Environmental Management series of standards and the ISO 50000 Energy Management series of standards, which have been adopted by 164 nations of the world. Major U.S. domestic examples include the LEED certifications of the U.S. Green Building Council and the Energy Star certifications by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, both of which are large and rapidly growing.
Activities of the EEMI have been integrated with GW’s new Sustainability Collaborative, as has been related to Dr. Leo Chalupa by Dr. Kathleen Merrigan. The Institute has become an important contributor to the Sustainability Collaborative.
The breadth of the topic also is indicated by the fact that the Institute not only will undertake interdisciplinary research to identify and facilitate development and implementation of environmental and energy management standards, it also will undertake educational processes to disseminate knowledge relevant to the resolution of pressing national and international environmental, energy and sustainability challenges via the implementation of environmental and energy management standards, and will undertake outreach and service activities with organizations to help attain the status as a recognized academic hub on environmental and energy management standards.
Consistent with the wide applicability of standards-based approaches for improving environmental conditions and energy use, the Institute is by design interdisciplinary. This fact is illustrated by the range of active participants in the Institute, including faculty members from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Milken Institute School of Public Health, School of Law, and College of Professional Studies. In addition, other GW organizational components already have been actively involved with it, including the Office of Sustainability and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy.
The cross-cutting nature of the research, educational and service activities of the EEMI is reflected by the eight EEMI Focal Areas detailed above. In addition, the interdisciplinary nature of the EEMI is highlighted by the organizational and professional variety of the Institute’s external Advisory Board membership.
The EEMI already has achieved notable success in assembling a blue-ribbon group of individuals to serve on an EEMI Advisory Board. Such individuals include a former Chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, three former Assistant Administrators of the US EPA, and a number of additional bipartisan public service, private sector and nongovernmental organizational figures.
In addition to these achievements, the nascent EEMI has already acquired two external research grants (Potomac Electric Power Company, $49,433; National Institute of Standards and Technology, $74,429). The EEMI is well down the road towards developing a Greenhouse Gas Management Institute Partnership to develop a graduate certification program on greenhouse gas management and accounting, aimed at non-governmental and private sector organizations. Under the auspices of the EEMI, a promising initiative in conjunction with a consortium of Federal agencies is to provide graduate education for government managers and executives pursuant to the proposed federal Climate Change Educational Initiative.
