The College of Life and Environmental Sciences can be tracked back to 1986, it was initially named the Department of Biology and Chemistry and it was renamed the College of Life and Environmental Sciences in 2002. After 38 years of construction and development, the college has sequentially won the Second-Class of National Teaching Achievements (2005), Beijing Municipal Outstanding Educational Innovation Collective (2006), Advanced Collective for Moral Education in Beijing Colleges and Universities (2014), and the Party Committee of the college was selected as one of the first batch of National Benchmark Schools for Party Building by the Ministry of Education in 2018.

The college is a key construction college of science, technology and medicine under “Project 211”, “Project 985” and “Double First-Class Initiative”, a construction unit of “Project 111” of the National Foreign Experts Bureau and the Ministry of Education, and a science popularization education base of Chinese Ecological Society. Two research platforms, the Center for Imaging & Systems Biology and the Center on Translational Neuroscience, are affiliated to the college.

Currently, there are 3 master’s level disciplines of Ecology, Biology, and Environmental Sciences and Engineering and 1 professional master's program of Resources and Environment, of which Ecology and Environmental Sciences and Engineering are the key course of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NEAC）. Mass Spectrometry Imaging and Metabolomics, which is based on chemistry and biology, is a high-precision and advanced discipline in Beijing, and Ecology and Environment has been listed in the top 1% of the global ESI rankings. The college is now focusing on consolidating the basic course of chemistry and biology and developing the interdisciplinary and applied disciplines of environment and ecology to create a new growth point. There are 45 doctoral students and 296 master's students enrolled.

The college presently has 6 undergraduate majors, including Biological Science, Ecology, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Chemistry and Sino-foriegn Cooperation (MUC-UCC) Environmental Science. Among them, the major of Ecology is a national specialty major and selected as a national first-class major construction point. While Biological Science is awarded as one of the Beijing municipal first-class major construction point, the major of environmental science is also listed as national first-class major construction point. The college is the first batch of trial institutions for the cultivation of top-notch innovative talents, and has completed 4 sessions of cultivation of top-notch innovative talents in science and technology. The current undergraduate student enrolment is 1,488, with a promotion rate of around 55%.

At present, there are 83 teaching staff in the college, consisting of 59 full-time teachers, 12 laboratory technicians and 12 full-time administrators, among whom 20 are professors and more than 95% of the full-time teachers hold Ph.D. degrees. The college has 1 Chang Jiang Scholar from the west, 3 New Century Excellent Talents from the Ministry of the Education, 2 Bao Gang Outstanding Teachers Award, 3 Leading Talents from NEAC, 4 Young and Middle-aged Talents from NEAC, 4 Excellent Young Talents from Beijing Municipality. Additionally, there are also 1 excellent teaching team in Beijing and 1 innovation team in NEAC.

Existing platforms of the college: National Experimental Chemistry Centre; Beijing Experimental Biology Center; Food, Environment and Health Engineering and Technology Research Center (Beijing); Key Laboratory of Ecology and Environment in Minority Areas; Key Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry Imaging and Metabonomics, National Ethnic Affairs Commission; and the College's Large Instrument Sharing Platform. In addition, there is the Beijing Off-campus Talent Cultivation Base (Xiaolongmen National Forest Park). Relying on the college, the university signed a co-operation framework agreement with the Beijing Meteorological Bureau and Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited. The college has set up grassland ecology research station in Hulun Lake National Nature Reserve in Inner Mongolia, and established teaching and research bases in Beijing Kezhuo Detection Technology Co, Wuliangsu Lake, Ningxia Dekun Environmental Protection Technology Industrial Group Co, and National Field Scientific Observatory for Atmospheric Composition Background in Shangdianzi, Beijing, China. Currently, the college is a member unit of the National Ecological and Environmental Protection Industry and Vocational Education Union and the executive director unit of National Ecological and Environmental Protection Industry and Vocational Education and Industry Integration Alliance.

The college adhere to the fundamental task of establishing morality and cultivating talents, and focuses on forging a strong sense of community of the Chinese nation. On the basis of serving the strategies needs of the nation, it concentrates on the ecological environment, resource protection, life and health of the people in the ethnic areas to conduct scientific research and talent training, with distinctive schooling characteristics.