The "ISO14001 Internal Environmental Auditor Training Course" Completion Certificate Awarding Ceremony was held on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. The ceremony was attended by President YOSHIDA Kazuhiro of Gifu University (GU), as well as Vice President SUGIYAMA Makoto (Director of the Environmental Affairs Office), and Professor KOBAYASHI Koichi (Environment Manager, the Faculty of Engineering), and others. A total of 23 GU students were conferred the certificate in AY 2023.

In 2003, the Faculty of Regional Studies became the first faculty in the university to obtain the ISO 14001, the international standards for environmental management systems. By 2013, all facilities excluding the University Hospital had obtained the ISO 14001. Since 2011, GU staff members and students have been carrying out the ISO 14001 internal environmental auditing every year for the improvement of the university environment.

In the internal environmental auditing, volunteer staff members and students checked whether the university's environmental management systems were operated in compliance with the ISO 14001 standards or not.

Before auditing, GU students and staff members were given briefings on the ISO 14001 and received basic training from experts invited from on-and off campus. They later launched a campus-wide auditing and concluded the results from their perspectives for protecting the environment.

At the ceremony, President Yoshida handed out a certificate to each student. In the following opinion exchange session, one student stated, "I am very happy to know the university's strong commitment to the protection of the environment."

President Yoshida gave students and staff the following words of encouragement: "I believe your participation in the auditing was a very good experience for you. Please demonstrate your leadership by using your expertise and spearhead our endeavors to protect the environment and attain SDGs^*1 through working together with the people at home and abroad."

Gifu University is looking forward to the active roles of GU students and staff for the protection of environment in the years to come.

1) The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all." The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA) and are intended to be achieved by 2030.