​The National Institutes of Health (NIH) commitment to responsible environmental management is a natural extension of our mission to learn more about living systems in order to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce the burdens of illness and disability. NIH is at the forefront of sustainability in the Federal government. Our Environmental Policy serves as the foundation for our sustainability initiatives and aligns with the broader U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan. We achieve our goals through our NIH Environmental Management System (NEMS), which requires each of our 27 Institutes and Centers (ICs) and every employee to contribute and enable us to reach our goals. NIH has active programs in place to manage all our environmental areas. Through the NEMS and the Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, NIH coordinates activities related to environmental management at NIH to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. This approach ensures our compliance with legal requirements and also improve our performance on environmental impacts that are not regulated.

The NIH commitment to responsible environmental management is a natural extension of our mission to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.  The NIH Environmental Management System (NEMS) provides a coordinated structure to meet NIH environmental responsibilities and pursue sustainability goals through pro-active management of NIH environmental programs.  The list of NIH environmental program areas is shown in the table below: