Battelle Memorial Institute’s commitment to environmental awareness at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — among other facilities — has been recognized by the Department of Energy with a Best-in-Class Pollution Prevention (P2) Award.
DOE’s Office of Science is presenting its P2 Award to Battelle for its corporate commitment to environmental stewardship at DOE Office of Science laboratories. Battelle co-manages ORNL through UT-Battelle, a partnership with the University of Tennessee. Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state are also co-managed by Battelle.
“Battelle has demonstrated a commitment to conduct operations in a way that protects and enhances the environment and improves the framework for conducting our science mission,” said Ray Orbach, director of DOE’s Office of Science.
ORNL was recognized for its integration of environmental sustainability principals in construction of five new facilities – a process that began in March 2002. The new structures contain energy-efficient roofs, low emission materials, recycled content materials and use native landscaping. Construction also led to establishment of an East Tennessee professional green building chapter.
“One of UT-Battelle’s chief goals in the ongoing ORNL modernization has been to construct new facilities with state of the art environmentally efficient technologies where feasible,” said ORNL Director Jeff Wadsworth.
Through its implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) modeled after International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 standards, ORNL was also nominated for demonstrating its commitment to environmental sustainability and pollution prevention.
ORNL plans to become registered to the ISO 14001 standard this year through a certified author independent of both Battelle and DOE.
“Registration by a third party will provide validity and credibility and help assure that our system is sustainable and continually improving,” said Kelly Beierschmitt, ORNL’s director of Environment, Safety, Health and Quality. “It’s not just us saying we have an effective environmental system.”
The ORNL EMS goes beyond the requirements in the ISO 14001 standard by placing additional emphasis on full environmental compliance, pollution prevention and effective and focused communication and community outreach.
ORNL is a multiprogram science and technology laboratory managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.