Environmental
Management Systems
in the United Nations
Results of a stocktaking exercise undertaken
year 2015, describing the development and
implementation of environmental management
systems (EMS) across the UN system
KRISTINA VON OELREICH AND EMMA HÅKANSSON
REPORT 6712 • MAY 2016
Environmental Management
Systems in the United Nations
Results of a stocktaking exercise undertaken year 2015,
describing the development and implementation of
environmental management systems (EMS)
across the UN system
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY
Orders
Phone: + 46 (0)8-505 933 40
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Internet: www.naturvardsverket.se/publikationer
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
Phone: +46 (0)10-698 10 00 Fax: +46 (0)10-698 10 99
E-mail: [email protected]
Address: Naturvårdsverket, SE-106 48 Stockholm, Sweden
Internet: www.naturvardsverket.se
ISBN 978-91-620-6712-0
ISSN 0282-7298
© Naturvårdsverket 2016
Print: CM Gruppen AB, Bromma 2016
Cover photo: Marcin Szala,
licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 Unported license
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
Foreword
For the UN to succeed in its purposes and to be a credible organization, it needs to
account for its environmental impact, reducing risks and unintended negative impacts and maximizing benefits to people and their environment. Therefore, it is
important that UN organizations systematically integrate environmental considerations in their work. Environmental Management Systems can be a tool for working
systematically towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
The purpose of this stocktaking exercise have been to provide an overview of the
current status of EMS implementation within the UN, and to reach a better understanding of how to introduce an EMS within an organization belonging to the UN
system. The stocktaking exercise also includes recommendations for further work
when implementing an EMS in accordance with best practice.
Working on the stocktaking exercise has been an interesting piece of work and we
have learned a lot about the UN system. We would like to thank all who contributed, for their input and expertise, which was of great assistance when finalizing this
report.
Kristina von Oelreich and Emma Håkansson, March 2016
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Contents
FOREWORD
3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
6 1 1.1 BACKGROUND
Background on internal environmental sustainability work within the
UN
12 1.1.1 Collaboration between Swedish EPA and UNEP (SUN)
13 1.2 The purpose of the stocktaking exercise
14 1.2.1 Methodology of the stocktaking exercise
15 1.3 Introduction to Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
15 2 2.1 CONTEXT OF THE ORGANIZATION
The UN and its context
18 18 2.2 Stakeholders and other interested parties
23 2.3 Determining the scope of the EMS
25 3 3.1 LEADERSHIP
Leadership and commitment
28 28 3.2 Environmental policies
30 3.3 Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities
32 4 4.1 PLANNING OF THE EMS
Compliance obligations
35 35 4.2 Significant environmental aspects
38 4.3 Environmental objectives and planning to achieve them
41 4.4 Risks and opportunities
44 5 5.1 SUPPORT FOR THE EMS
Resources
46 46 5.2 Communication
49 5.3 Documentation
50 6 6.1 OPERATION
Operational planning and control
53 53 6.2 Environmental emergency preparedness and response
55 7 7.1 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
57 57 7.2 Evaluation of compliance obligations
58 4
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7.3 Internal environmental audit
60 7.4 Management review
62 7.5 Sustainability report
63 8 8.1 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT
Nonconformity and corrective action
65 65 8.2 Continual improvement
67 9 9.1 RESOURCES AND ACTIONS TAKEN CONCERNING INTERNAL
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Teams and networks for internal environmental sustainability
70 70 9.2 Actions taken concerning internal environmental sustainability
75 10 THE SELECTION PROCESS FOR EMS PILOTS
82 11 CONCLUSIONS
84 12 RECOMMENDATIONS
90 13 REFERENCES
93 APPENDIX 1: EXAMPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
98 APPENDIX 2: INTERNAL COMMITMENTS AND GUIDELINES ON
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
101 APPENDIX 3: EXEMPLE OF EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR SIGNIFICANT
ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS
110 APPENDIX 4: THE QUESTIONS IN THE EMS SURVEY
111 APPENDIX 5: MEMBERS OF CEB AND EMG
114 APPENDIX 6: ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
117 APPENDIX 7: SWOT ANALYSIS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EMSS
IN THE UN SYSTEM
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Executive summary
Background
Sustainable United Nations (SUN) is an initiative of UNEP that coordinates operational activities and supports different UN organizations in their efforts to implement the UN climate neutral strategy and environmental management systems
(EMSs). The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA), with its
long experience of working with international standards for EMS and coordinating
and guiding 190 government agencies in their environmental management systems
work, is supporting the work of the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) by advising the SUN team and building the capacity of UN entities to
establish and maintain EMSs.
The Swedish EPA - UNEP partnership (2014-2018), funded by Sida, is laying the
foundations for the future mainstreaming of environmental management in UN.
These efforts are focusing on the environmental impacts of internal management of
facilities and operations1. A broader process hosted by the UN Environment Management Group (EMG) encompasses both environmental and social impacts and
expands the scope beyond facilities and operations to include programmes and
projects. Collaboration with the EMG Secretariat is therefore an integral part of the
partnership. An important issue for the donor is the gender perceptive, which
should also be taken into consideration whenever relevant, when implementing and
maintaining an EMS.
One of the main purposes of the United Nations (UN) is to help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms2. For the UN to
succeed in its purposes and to be a credible organization, it needs to account for its
environmental impact, reducing risks and unintended negative impacts and maximizing benefits to people and their environment.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were endorsed by the General
Assembly in September 2015. These will function as a common basis for the work
of all UN organizations. Implementing an EMS will provide UN agencies with a
documented, systematic and transparent tool to motivate, track and report on progress over time, whilst working towards the internalisation of the environmental
dimension of the SDGs in their management processes in a systematic manner.
1
2
‘Operations’ mean travel, procurement and facilities management.
http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/index.shtml 2014-01-14
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Purpose
The purpose of the stocktaking exercise was to provide an overview of the current
status of environmental management systems of different UN organizations, to
make sure future activities in the Swedish EPA - UNEP partnership build on existing work, and to reach a better understanding of how to introduce EMSs to the UN
system. Based on the findings made, the stocktaking exercise provides recommendations for improvements.
Methodology
The experts at the Swedish EPA, in collaboration with the SUN team and the sustainability focal points in the UN EMS Working Group, have conducted a stocktaking exercise on the stage of development and implementation of EMSs across the
UN system. The stocktaking exercise report references EMS requirements under
accepted international standards such as ISO 14001:2015, and is based on the Swedish EPA experts’ experiences and findings in the field. Knowledge of the UN
status quo on EMSs was obtained through reviews of documentation from a selection of UN organizations and UN bodies, and information from IMG focal points.
Conclusions
The stocktaking exercise shows that many UN organizations work actively on
environmental issues both at corporate management level and in their programming. The results from a minor EMS survey conducted in April 2015 reflect that
the majority of the responding organizations are in the initial stage of the EMS
implementation.
Given that the UN is governed by many Member States and driven by a political
process, decision-making takes long time. There are a number of constraints under
which the UN operates, particularly the many stakeholders with varied interests,
which could make it difficult to secure a consensus around environmental
measures.
Implementing an EMS gives an opportunity for UN organizations to contribute to
the One UN initiative for a more coherent and efficient delivery. The One UN
reform is focused on more coherent programmes, strengthened accountability,
monitoring and evaluation, and improved outcomes. An EMS directly supports this
effort by providing a systematic and uniform approach to improved control, efficiency and reporting.
EMS in UN organizations can bring many benefits. Implementing an EMS gives an
opportunity for the UN organizations to demonstrate that they have relevant policies and systems in place to satisfy the environmental requirements from stake-
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holders. The General Assembly has signalled expectations of the UN to walk the
talk on sustainability measures, while environmental requirements are becoming a
precondition for funding from donors such as the Global Environment Facility
(GEF). EMS in UN organizations represents an opportunity to mainstream environmental considerations in policies, strategies, projects and programmes.
Literature studies, experience from Swedish EPA’s guidance to public agencies,
and discussions with members if the EMS working group as part of the stocktaking
exercise, confirms that it is very important for the implementation of any EMS to
ensure that senior management and staff are all involved in its development and
implementation.
Experience from the work in guiding 190 public authorities in Sweden has shown
that when organizations include both operations and facilitates, and programmes
and projects in their EMS, it will engage the senior management and the staff to a
greater extent, and the understanding of an EMS in the daily work will increase.
A properly functioning environmental management system results in improved
management of natural resources and identified cost efficiencies such as improved
management of electricity, fuel and travel3, and could free up funding for applying
the mandated objectives of the various missions of the United Nation organizations.
Recommendations
The main recommendations for creating proper institutional conditions to implement an EMS are described below. They are described according to best practice,
with the purpose to limit the environmental impact, speed up the implementation of
EMS and to reduce the costs for the implementing organizations. Each recommendation must be undertaken within a context of respect for the institutional obligations arising from other policies, such as policies on gender and indigenous peoples. These together may form the approach to internalising sustainable development principles in UN corporate management.
The recommendations are not given in a specific order of priority since they are
connected to each other. Literature, discussions with members of the EMS working
group, and the earlier experience of the Swedish EPA experts, confirms that the
leadership, the involvement of staff and the integration of the EMS in the existing
management structure, is crucial for a successful EMS implementation within the
UN.
3
The Business Case for Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations (2013)
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Certain core functions should be managed on a common UN-wide basis, to streamline and coordinate efforts, and to avoid duplication of efforts and costs. This
brings advantages such as economies of scale and a coherent way of working with
sustainability issues in the spirit of the One UN reform. According to best practice,
the UN system is recommended to adopt the following activities, through a permanent central coordination:
 Develop the existing central EMS support, by increasing the number of
training activities, and the exchange of experience between the organizations, for achieving more powerful synergies
 Identify how the Sustainable Development Goals, and also standards for
best practice on social responsibility, can be tools and the next steps for the
UN organizations for working in a systematic manner with both environmental and social issues.
 Make sure that competence in environmental law is available to support
UN organizations.
 Provide and encourage the use of coherent and common EMS guidelines
and voluntary templates customized for the UN, e.g. for initial environmental review and for developing internal environmental objectives.
 Develop EMS indicators that the UN organizations should report on centrally and to their governing body, and accelerate the work with the four
endorsed sustainability indicators (GHG gases, water use, waste management and environmental training).
 Coordinate internal environmental audits between the UN organizations,
by supporting the auditors with regards to training and sharing experience.
The internal auditors could audit each other's organizations.
 Consider how the EMS support may be extended from environmental aspects in operation and facilities to environmental aspects in policymaking,
programming and projects.
 Develop how the gender perspective could be integrated in a logical structure for an EMS based on the PDCA-cycle (Plan, Do, Check and Act).
Through the work of SUN and the IMG on Environmental Sustainability, many of
the above mentioned steps are already well underway. At the end of the stocktaking
exercise report, a mapping of existing networks and teams working with environmental sustainability within the UN can be found. Also actions taken concerning
internal environmental sustainability, such as strategic plans and major projects, are
described, together with a timeline over internal commitments on environmental
sustainability within the UN system.
According to best practice, each UN organization is recommended to adopt the
following activities:
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
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4
5
Conduct a SWOT4 - or PESTLE5 - analysis, to reach a better understanding
of the factors that impact the EMS and the environmental context in which
the organization operates.
Show how the demands from relevant stakeholders have been internalized
into the organization’s own policy, strategic documents and at the operational level.
Include environmental objectives and environmental performance
measures in the “Senior Manager’s Compact”.
Make the support from senior management visible, by sponsoring an initial
environmental review, adopting an environmental policy, ensuring organization-wide communication of the environmental work and endorsing internal environmental objectives.
Integrate both environmental objectives and action plans in existing strategic documents and activity plans.
Make sure that the allocation of resources, not least human resources, for
the EMS is an integrated part of the ordinary budget process already in
place.
Improve the monitoring and management of significant environmental aspects.
Complement possible emergency management systems already in place,
with procedures for environmental consideration.
Integrate environmental risks and opportunities considerations in existing
risk management, and evaluate possible changes in the EMS, such as a revised list of significant environmental aspects.
Ensure appropriate competencies to be able to conduct regular evaluations
of adherence to environmental compliance obligations.
Conduct regular environmental audits and environmental management reviews.
Include sustainability considerations in purchasing and procurement, which
can have an impact on the enabling of a green economy.
Develop the work to continuously identify nonconformities and taking corrective action in the environmental work, and integrate it in the existing
handling of nonconformities for other areas, such as quality, conformity
with project procedures etc.
Describe the results of the monitoring and evaluation of the environmental
performance in an annual sustainability report, used for communication
with donors, UN staff, and other stakeholders, to ensure the mechanism for
accountability and transparency within the UN.
Have a tolerant and encouraging culture, where identified nonconformities
are found to represent opportunities for improvement, and have well-
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
PESTLE analysis can be used to examine the political, economic, social, technological, environmental
and legal pressures for environmental protection.
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functioning communication channels for the exchange of experiences, all
to accomplish continual improvement.
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1
Background
1.1 Background on internal environmental
sustainability work within the UN
One of the main purposes of the United Nations (UN) is to help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms6. Through that
mission, the UN system becomes one of the largest implementing global actors to
promote sustainable development and poverty reduction7. The UN could therefore,
through its mission, contribute to solve the challenges the world faces today, for
example scarce resources such as water and food, increasing amounts of waste, the
environmental effects of increased energy consumption, lack of security, climate
change, poverty, inequality and the lack of influence of women globally. How it
does this therefore matters. More specifically, success in the UN’s mission depends
on its accounting for its environmental impact, reducing risks and unintended negative impacts and maximizing benefits to people and their environment. It is consequently important that UN organizations systematically integrate environmental
considerations into the implementation of their mandates.
While many parts of the Organization have individual sustainability goals, the UN
acting as one can do even more. Internalising environmental, as well as social and
economic, sustainability practices can make the UN a more efficient, effective and
responsible organization. How the UN makes policy, develops programmes and
oversees its facilities must be viewed through the lens of sustainability.
United Nations Executive Heads approved in September 2011 a “Framework for
advancing environmental and social sustainability in the UN system”8 providing
preliminary guidance on the integration of sustainable development considerations
into policies/strategies, programmes/projects and facilities/operations. As a contribution to the latter, Executive Heads also approved a “Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the UN System”9 that provides a model for the systematic
integration of environmental sustainability into the management of UN facilities
and operations.
6
http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/index.shtml 2014-01-14
7
A framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United Nations, 2012 page 6
8
http://www.unemg.org/Portals/24182/Documents/MeetingsDocs/EMGSeniorOffMtgs/2011/advancing%
20E&S%20sustainability%20report%2027%20Aug%202011.pdf
9
http://www.unemg.org/MeetingsDocuments/EMGSeniorOfficialsMeetings/2011/tabid/102164/Default.a
spx
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At Rio+20, UN member states also made clear their wish to see the UN lead by
example on sustainability management. The General Assembly Quadrennial Policy
Review, echoing the Rio+20 outcome document “The future we want” (endorsed
by the UN General Assembly on 27 July 201210), asks UN organizations “to consider measures to integrate social, economic and environmental dimensions across
the UN system’s operational activities” and “calls on the UN system to improve the
management of facilities and operations, by taking into account sustainable development practices, building on existing efforts and promoting cost effectiveness”11.
The UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination approved on 5 April 2013 that
all UN agencies would introduce environmental management systems (EMS). UN
heads of agency agreed to commit to implementing EMS in all organizations
through a gradual and flexible approach, and also to “mainstream EMS in programming and planning processes”. These policy statements provide system-wide
impetus for the adoption of organization-specific environmental management systems (EMS) by the UN at all levels. The systematic approach of an EMS will require UN organizations to account for both the short- and long-term environmental
effects of their activities in the countries where they operate. This, in turn, will
allow it to better support member states to further the global sustainability agenda.
1.1.1
Collaboration between Swedish EPA and UNEP (SUN)
Sustainable United Nations (SUN) is a part of UNEP and coordinates operational
activities and supports the UN organizations in their efforts to implement environmental management systems. The UNEP (SUN) Facility has strived to create the
demand for a cultural and management change inside the UN system, focusing on
environmental sustainability.
In 2008, UNEP (SUN) was a UN innovator when it developed and implemented a
common, agreed methodology for a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory for
the UN system. This was the first step towards the implementation of the UN climate neutral strategy. Of greater potential impact is the move from measurement to
action: emissions reduction.
Over the next 3-5 years, the political and the practical work of UNEP (SUN) will
focus on assisting a shift from ad hoc environmental measures to environmental
management systems. These efforts will initially focus on internal management,
e.g. direct environmental impact. Later there will be an expansion to cover indirect
environmental impacts and how UN agencies actually deliver their mandates as
part of the wider Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework of the UN
Environment Management Group (EMG). This is a natural step after environmental sustainability has been consolidated in internal corporate management.
10
A/Res/66/288
11
A/Res67/226, para 15
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In this regard the EMG is currently preparing guidance for the integration of environmental and social sustainability principles in the implementation of UN policies
and programme pillars via the work on a UN Framework for Environmental and
Social Sustainability. As part of their collaboration with UNEP SUN, the Swedish
EPA experts will be called upon to lend their expertise to help UN organizations
define and make operational the environmental aspects of the framework.
With long experience of working with international standards for EMS and coordinating and guiding 190 government agencies in their environmental management
work, the expertise from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish
EPA) will bring value by supporting the work of SUN to accelerate the uptake of
environmental management systems by UN organizations and helping to build
capacity and autonomy.
The Swedish EPA - SUN partnership (2014-2018) will lay the foundations for the
future mainstreaming of environmental management in UN. These efforts will
initially focus on internal management, e.g. direct environmental impact as facilities and operations. The partnership will help SUN to support and accompany UN
organizations in their implementation of the above decisions, by developing a body
of knowledge and practical tools that will serve over the medium to long term. The
desired effect of this partnership is that UN agencies will reduce their negative
environmental impact and enhance a positive environmental impact.
1.2 The purpose of the stocktaking
exercise
During 2015, the experts at the Swedish EPA have conducted a stocktaking exercise of the stage of development and implementation of environmental management systems (EMS) across the UN system to establish a knowledge base for EMS
tailored to UN needs. The stocktaking exercise also includes recommendations for
further work when implementing an EMS according to best practice.
This report describes the results of the stocktaking exercise. The purpose of the
stocktaking exercise was to identify the main needs when building an EMS for an
organization belonging to the UN system, to provide an overview of the current
status and to reach a better understanding of how to introduce an EMS.
The analysis will serve to create a baseline for the overall project, and help ensure
that future efforts build on existing EMS efforts within the UN system. It will also
allow the Swedish EPA experts to grasp how an EMS is developed and implemented in the United Nations System.
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1.2.1
Methodology of the stocktaking exercise
This stocktaking exercise report is conducted by Swedish EPA experts Kristina von
Oelreich and Emma Håkansson, in collaboration with the SUN team and the UN
EMS Working Group. The final conclusions in the report are structured as a
SWOT-analysis. The content and views expressed in this publication are those of
the authors.
The stocktaking exercise report references EMS requirements under accepted international standards and is based on the Swedish EPA experts’ experiences and
findings in the field.
Knowledge of the UN status quo on EMS was obtained through review of documentation from a selection of UN organizations and UN bodies. Information was
also obtained by the results from the survey “Level of implementation of the EMS
milestones framework”. The survey was sent in April 2015 to the members of the
Environmental Management Systems Working Group and to UN organizations
interested in becoming EMS pilots. It is advised to read the results as representative
of the 17 organizations that responded only, and refrain from making assumptions
for the entire UN system. These 17 organizations are all among the most advanced
and interested in EMS implementation in the UN system. Information about the
results from the survey can be found in Chapter 9.2 “Actions taken concerning
internal environmental sustainability”.
The structure of the stocktaking exercise report is built so that most chapters
(Chapters 2 to 8) begin with a brief summary of best practice requirements for an
EMS from the ISO 14001:2015 standard (and EMAS, if applicable, or particularly
if different from the ISO standard), and then there is a comparison of the current
status in the United Nations against the key elements of the standard. At the end of
each chapter recommendations for the further work with implementing an EMS in
the UN system are given. The report also contains a specific chapter (Chapter 9)
which provides an overview of the current status of resources and actions already
taken concerning EMS implementation and internal environmental sustainability
within the UN system.
For the purpose of this report, “the UN organizations” means the organizations of
the United Nations including United Nations funds and programmes, specialized
agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
1.3 Introduction to Environmental
Management Systems (EMS)
Organizations worldwide are using the international ISO standards for environmental management systems (ISO 14001:2004) and the standard for guidance on social
responsibility (26000:2010). ISO 14001 is relevant to all organizations, regardless
of size and business focus. In autumn 2015, there will be a new revised version of
ISO 14001, called ISO 14001:2015. The stocktaking exercise report has been based
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on the content in the new standard. In Europe, organizations also have an environmental management system instrument: the European Regulation for EcoManagement and Audit Scheme (EMAS).
ISO 14001 defines an EMS as the part of an organization's management system
that is used to develop and implement its environmental policy. The ISO standards
covering environmental management detail the elements of an effective EMS that
can be integrated with other management requirements to help organizations
achieve environmental and economic goals.
An EMS should include an organizational structure, planning activities, welldefined responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources. It must be
based on the specific operations of each organization as it is designed to help
streamline and organize the organization’s environmental deliberations and activities.
An EMS does not mandate particular sustainability measures or outcomes; rather it
activates the organization to make continuous improvements. The aim is to continuously reduce the organization’s total environmental impact by providing the management with a better governance system over activities undertaken to address
environmental issues in terms of both performance and cost. In addition, elements
of an EMS can be coordinated with other management systems, such as quality
control, social and safety issues.
With a functioning EMS in place, an organization's credibility on environmental
stewardship should increase, and its knowledge of its environmental performance
should likewise improve. These developments should, in turn, lead to enriched
communication with stakeholders and other interested parties.
The paradigmatic EMS is designed around four basic elements that follow a logical
structure for its operation. The structure is built according to a Plan-Do-Check-Act,
or PDCA, cycle.
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According to the report “Environmental profile of the United Nations system organizations” (JIU/REP/2010/1) by the UN Joint Inspection Unit in 2009, some UN
organizations were about to adopt in-house environmental plans and policies along
the lines of the ISO 14000 standards. This could provide an operational framework
for monitoring, measuring and improving environmental performance on an ongoing basis. A limited number of UN organizations have certified environmental
management systems according to ISO 14001 (see Chapter 9.2, Actions taken concerning internal environmental sustainability).
Implementing an EMS in the UN organizations according to paragraph 94 in the
document “The future we want” (66/288) could be an appropriate measure for
integrating the social, economic and environmental dimensions across the operational activities of the United Nations system.
The Framework for Advancing the Environmental and Social Sustainability in the
UN system describes minimum essential building blocks for integration of environmental and social sustainability measures across their activities. The different
blocks are very similar to the structure of the PDCA cycle. Also The EMS Milestones Framework is built on the structure of the PDCA cycle.
When an EMS is implemented according to the PDCA cycle, the organization
should in each phase consider if the EMS can affect the genders differently, and
also if the gender perspective could have any impact on the EMS work and the
organization’s environmental performance.
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2
Context of the organization
2.1
The UN and its context
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its
purpose, and that affect its ability to achieve the intended outcome of its environmental management system. The aim is to increase the understanding of the context in which the organization operates, and the issues that can affect either positively or negatively the organization's ability to manage its environmental responsibilities. These issues may include environmental conditions such as land use and
natural resource availability, which may affect the organization, or may be affected
by the organization. It may also include internal characteristics such as the culture
of the organization, and the external political context.
Current status and recommendations
The purpose of the UN
The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 with the
ratification of the Charter of the United Nations. From the Charter it is understood
that the purposes of the United Nations are:
 to keep peace throughout the world;
 to develop friendly relations among nations;
 to help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms;
 to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve these goals.
The UN mission to work for sustainable development through peace and security
was foundedin the Charter, even if it at that time it was not described on the basis
of the concept of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development
emerged as environmental issues were given an increased focus on the international agenda in the 1970s and 1980s and had an impact on the UN mission. For example the emergence of the concept of ‘sustainable development' based on the UN
report ''Our common future'' (1987), has had an impact on the UN mission and on
the context in which the UN operates.
The UN needs, within the mandate they have, to take into account issues related to
the concept of social, ecological and economic sustainability. In the report “The
future we want” (66/288) paragraph 91-96, the contributive role of the UN organizations to sustainable development is described. Sustainable development is an
important aspect for the UN to consider in order to fulfill its mission. The challenges the world faces today are, for example, scarce resources such as water and
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food, increasing amounts of waste, the environmental effects of increased energy
consumption, lack of security, climate change, poverty, inequality and the lack of
influence for the world’s women.
Environmental conditions that may affect the organization
The world, including the environmental conditions, has changed since the UN
Charter entered into force. As an example, the increasing risk of conflict over natural resources due to a growing population can affect the fulfilment of the purposes
of the Charter. The work on international agreements on sustainability measures
and environmental considerations through declarations, conventions, standards and
covenants has therefore been an increasing part of the work of the UN. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the process to develop Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are evidence of that.
The Security Council has mandated peacekeeping missions to help national authorities conduct activities in support of natural resource management. Peacekeeping
operations where natural resources have financed or fuelled conflict, such as grievances over access, represent around 50% of the peace¬keeping budget. Major
peace agreements now include provisions on natural resources. Land is most commonly addressed but extractive resources such as oil and minerals, and renewable
resources e.g. water, are also included.12
The Pacific Institute, which studies issues of water and global security, has found a
fourfold increase in violent confrontations over water over the last decade. Peter
Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute states that “the risk of conflicts over water
is growing because of increased competition, bad management and, ultimately,
because of the impacts of climate change".13
The effect that climate change can have on the lives of poor people, hunger, disease
and illiteracy, is another example of environmental conditions that can affect the
work of the UN. The poor are already the most at risk from climate change. They
have the fewest resources to adapt or recovery quickly from extreme weather
changes, and they often live on the most vulnerable land because it is the most
affordable, such as homes along creeks that flood. The damage extreme weather
can do to homes and businesses are often the trigger that tips the vulnerable into
poverty.14
12
13
Greening the Blue Helmets (2012)
The Guardian, 9 February 2014
14
The World Bank web page, Feb 6, 2015,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/02/06/climate-change-complicates-efforts-endpoverty
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Inability to gain a livelihood due to environmental degradation, natural disasters, or
development projects, obligates environmental refugees15 to migrate from their
homelands. There are currently between 25 and 30 million environmental refugees
worldwide, and their numbers are expected to swell to 200 million by mid-century,
largely as a result of climate change.16
Despite women’s role and know-how, their contribution to sustaining communities
is regularly undervalued. Furthermore, women are uniquely vulnerable to environmental degradation. For example, it is established that environmental hazards are
among the major causes of global death and disease, and that the burden falls disproportionately on women and young children, especially in less developed countries. UNEP recognizes gender as a cross-cutting priority, and its programme of
work promotes women’s participation in all environmental protection and sustainable development activities.17 An area where women play an important role is the
transition to sustainable energy and in ensuring universal energy access since they
are often “in the driver’s seat” of sustainable energy solutions at the community
level.18
Environmental conditions that can be affected by the organization
The UN as an organization can have an impact on the environment both directly
and indirectly.19 The UN have a possibility to affect the environmental condition
through its normative role to work out international agreements as international
conventions and declarations concerning environmental issues (indirect), and also
by integrating environmental issues into the UN organizations policies/strategies,
programmes/projects (indirect) and facilities and operations (direct).
Normative role
The United Nations has played and is still playing an important normative role in
the establishment of international agreements on the environment, which can have
an enormous indirect environmental impact. The UN organizations give support to
national policy development, develops and hosts multilateral environmental
agreements, and gives assistance to international conventions and treaties. Some
examples are the adoption of Agenda 21 (1992), the Millennium Summit (2000)
and its Millennium Development Goals and the Rio +20 UN conference on Sus15
The Climate Institute defines environmental refugees as "people fleeing from environmental crises,
whether natural or anthropogenic events, and whether short or long term."
16
17
http://climate.org/topics/environmental-security/index.html
http://www.unep.org/gender/
18
http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media_upgrade/What_we_do/Topics/Women_and_Youth/GUIDA
NCENOTE_FINAL_WEB.pdf
19
Indirect environmental impact is a negative or positive change in the environment which arises as a
result of someone other than the organization taking action, as a consequence of regulations, decisions, advice, training or the provision of information from the organization. Definition from the Ordinance (2009:907) on EMS in public authorities
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tainable Development (2012).20 Another example was the Kyoto Protocol which
was an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that committed its parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.
The establishment of international agreements on the environment also impacts
other working areas within the UN, such as climate policies that benefit the poor
over the long-term and can benefit the poor in the short-term when accompanied by
appropriate social policies.21
Policies/strategies and programmes/projects
All work within the UN with policies/strategies and programmes/projects has an
indirect environmental impact. If environmental considerations are considered as a
part of the development of all entities’ policies and strategies, including those specific to the entities’ internal operations, as well as to reflect the entities’ wider strategic priorities and thematic areas of focus, it will have an environmental impact.22
It could be the mainstreaming of environmental sustainability into an agency´s
country cooperation, or that environmental considerations are systematically integrated in all programme and project cycles, included as a part of planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. As an example, UNDP´s social and environmental standards are embedded in UNDP´s Quality Assurance Framework as
one of seven key quality criteria.
Operations and facilities
The sheer size of the UN organization causes a considerable environmental impact
from facilities and operations. Activities included in “operations” in the UN offices
are HR, office operations, meetings and bigger conferences, travel and procurement. For field activities such as peacekeeping operations, there is an even more
diverse variation of activities, e.g. the establishment of camps and all the logistics
connected to that such as transportation, waste management and food provision. In
2014 the total number of UN staff was approximately 252,00023 of whom the
peacekeeping operations constituted around half24. The greenhouse gas emissions
from facilities and travels were around 2,090,000 tCO2eq in 2014 for the UN system.25
20
http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/environment/, 2015-05-07
21
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/02/06/climate-change-complicates-efforts-endpoverty
22
A Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United Nations System,
p.49
23
24
25
Moving towards a Climate Neutral United Nations (2015)
Greening the Blue Helmets (2012)
Moving towards a Climate Neutral United Nations (2015)
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The UN operates in several countries, both through their offices in its 193 Member
States and through its programmes and initiatives. It is crucial that the UN organizations has a minimal environmental impact at its offices and operations, not least
because they often operate in poor countries with limited resources and extra fragile nature. The systematic approach of an EMS will help to achieve better planning
and control of basic operations and their environmental impacts, and will also allow the UN agencies to better support Member States to further the global sustainability agenda.
EMS that covers facilities and operations shows that the UN takes its responsibility
to mitigate the impact from its own organization on scarce resources and climate
change. EMS that also covers policy making means that the UN takes environmental issues into consideration in its overall work of keeping peace and helping nations to improve the lives of poor people.
To accomplish the EMS requirements concerning the context in which the organization operates, the UN organizations could conduct SWOT-analyses. It is a way to
regularly assess relevant aspects of the context in which the organization operates,
and factors that impact on the ability to achieve the intended outcome of environmental management system. A SWOT-analysis is a planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the activities in a business or an organization.
Another tool that can be used is a PESTLE analysis, to examine the increasing
political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal pressures for
environmental protection.26 It may help clarify the external reality in which the
UN operates in and how an EMS can affect and can be affected by these factors.
Other issues that affect the ability to manage environmental responsibilities
The culture of the organization can also affect the work with environmental issues.
The UN is an international organization, which could impact the culture and the
values. It can for example mean that the cultural background of different staff leads
to different values and the view on the importance and priorities of the environmental work. Other issues such as the gender perspective should also be considered
if it affects the ability to manage environmental responsibilities.
UN organizations strive to work more coherent through the One UN initiative. A
number of countries have adopted the principles of the “Delivering as One”, which
is part of an ongoing reform process of the way the UN organizations work at
26
Information from Marlan Pillay, UNFCCC
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country level.27 The reform process is focused on results, strengthened accountability, monitoring and evaluation and improved outcomes.28
Concerning the external political context, Member States, funders and other stakeholders have a great impact on the priorities within the UN and consequently if and
how the UN agencies should work with environmental management systems. Signals on expectations of the UN to walk the talk on sustainability measures have
become more evident the last years. One example is from the Rio +20 Conference
in 2012, where the General Assembly renewed its commitment to “sustainable
development and to ensuring the promotion of an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future for our planet and for present and future generations”…and “acknowledge the need to further mainstream sustainable development
at all levels, integrating economic, social and environmental aspects and recognizing their inter-linkages…”29
2.2 Stakeholders and other interested
parties
Requirements according to ISO 14001
In addition to identifying the internal and external factors that can affect, either
positively or negatively, the way the organization manages its environmental responsibilities, best EMS practice dictates that the organizations should identify
those parties interested in its EMS (which includes staff of the organization) and
establishes a mechanism to receive and review their relevant needs and expectations. The organization must then determine whether to undertake compliance
obligations or other measures to respond to any of these needs and expectations.
Once the organization adopts an obligation, it becomes an organizational requirement to be taken into account when establishing an EMS and related internal environmental objectives.
The organization is to establish a mechanism by which it will receive, review and
determine its response to the relevant needs and expectations of any party that
perceives itself to be directly affected by decisions or activities of the organization
related to environmental performance. The organization should document its
knowledge of relevant interested party needs and expectations and of its related
obligations and responses, as appropriate.
27
28
http://www.norway.org.vn/Norway_and_Vietnam/bilateral/One-UN/
https://undg.org/home/guidance-policies/delivering-as-one/
29
Meeting minutes from the meeting of High Level Committee on Management (HLCM) 7-8 March
2013, paragraph 81-82 and UN General Assembly Resolutions 66/288 ‘The future we want’ and
GA/Res/67/226 can be accessed at http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/futurewewant.html and
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/67/226
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The new ISO 14001:2015 emphasizes that all life cycle stages which can be controlled or influenced by the organization should be covered by the EMS. Therefore,
also environmental impact in e.g. the supply chain should be described and managed.
Current status and recommendations
United Nations organizations have an understanding of which parties are interested
in the activities that they manage and evince an informal understanding of the relevant expectations of parties, as Member States, donors and other stakeholders
sometimes require the application of environmental measures in their partnership.
The Member States expressed their expectations they have on the UN organizations to contribute to sustainable development in the document “The future we
want” (66/288) paragraph 91-96. On some of the UN organization’s websites30
there are documents that describe stakeholders and partners that are interested in
the environmental aspects of the UN system, such as member states, donors, indigenous communities, businesses and the civil society. The World Food Programme
for example, has information about their partners and a list over donors on their
website.
The UN organizations receive this understanding through the establishment of
agreements with stakeholders and through the daily cooperation the UN organizations have with different partners when they are fulfilling their missions. Stakeholders and communities demand that the UN organizations have environmental
safeguards31 in place to ensure that projects/programmes protect their interests and
donors that require that environmental issues are taken into account as a condition
for receiving donor funding. In order to meet each criterion, UN organizations will
need to demonstrate that they have relevant policies and systems in place that can
satisfy the minimum requirements that are listed by the donors. Different interested
parties will also periodically be evaluating the work that the UN organizations are
doing. Other stakeholders relevant to the work on environmental sustainability are
the beneficiary communities.
The UN organizations should also identify those internal parties within the UN
organizations that have an interest in its EMS and establish a mechanism to receive
and review their relevant needs and expectations. The internal parties include staff
working for the UN, such as senior managers, the UN Secretary General, environ30
http://www.wfp.org/about/funding/year
31
GEF https://www.thegef.org/gef/policies_guidelines/safeguards GEF
https://www.thegef.org/gef/sites/thegef.org/files/Docs/Policy_Environmental_and_Social_Safeguards_
0.pdf
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mental experts, staff that has a special interest in environmental issues and staff
working on the behalf of the organizations as contractors.
Within the UN itself, there have been a lot of initiatives for the implementation of
environmental sustainability issues (described in Chapter 9 and Appendix 2). In the
documentation describing the different kinds of work that have been done, no information could be found about how the UN organizations are taking into account
the expectations of the staff of the organization. The staffs in the organization, with
their knowledge in the operational activities, have a very important role by considering environmental issues in their daily work.
The United Nations organizations could in a more systematic way, according to
ISO 14001, determine which parties would be relevant to their EMS and communicate the environmental aspects to the interested stakeholders and partners. The
forums for collaboration already in place where the UN organizations communicate
important issues to interested stakeholders and partners, could also be used for
discussing environmental aspects, and when relevant, gender issues.
The UN organizations could incorporate in existing documents or specific documents for partnership the needs and the expectations that stakeholders and partners
have concerning environmental issues. This work should continuously be evaluated
and documented.
The UN organizations also need to show how the demands from relevant stakeholders and partners have been internalized into the organizations own policy and
strategic documents and also at the operational level with necessary procedures.
The UN organizations could also strengthen the internal procedures to consider the
environmental initiatives from staff within the UN.
2.3
Determining the scope of the EMS
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The scope of an EMS clarifies the geographical, functional and organizational
boundaries to which the EMS applies. An organization may choose to limit the
scope of its EMS by applying it only to certain categories of activities and/or locations and/or units of the organization. The question of an EMS’ scope is particularly important to address if the organization promulgating the EMS is part of a larger
institution with many geographical locations. An organization has great latitude in
defining the boundaries of its EMS, as long as those establishing the EMS have the
authority to do so. When determining the scope of its EMS, the organization shall,
according to best practice, consider the range of related external and internal factors.
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Current status and recommendations
There are documents at the UN website32 that describe the scope of the UN nations
system and the scope for the UN organizations. These documents describe the UN
system's and the UN organizations’ mandate, role, responsibilities and authorities.
There are also documents that describe in general the range of environmental and
social sustainability aspects of the United Nations System.
The framework for advancing environmental and social sustainability in the United
Nations system, could be seen as an overall scope for an environmental management system within the UN system. As an example the “The Joint Statement by
Executive Heads of EMG Members on Advancing Environmental and Social sustainability in the United Nations system”, includes agencies, founds, programmes
and departments of the United Nations.
In the document “The future we want” (66/288) paragraph 91 describes for an
example that sustainable development should be given due consideration by the
programmes, funds and specialized agencies of the United Nations system and
other relevant UN organizations such as international financial institutions and the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in accordance with their
respective existing mandates. They should further enhance mainstreaming of sustainable development in their respective mandates, programmes, strategies and
decision-making processes, in support of the efforts of all countries, in particular
developing countries, in the achievement of sustainable development.
Paragraph 96 calls on the United Nations system to improve the management of
facilities and operations, by taking into account sustainable development practices,
building on existing efforts and promoting cost effectiveness, and in accordance
with legislative frameworks, including financial rules and regulations, while maintaining accountability to Member States.
The Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the UN
System identifies three ‘entry points’ for the integration of sustainability measures
within UN entities: policy/strategy, programmes/projects and facilities/operations.
From these documents, it is clear that the UN organizations could establish an EMS
to cover the development, implementation and review of relevant policies/strategies, as well as its facilities management/operations.
For the UN Secretariat for example, establishing the scope could mean that the
geographical boundaries could be the premises at headquarters in New York, the
functional boundaries facilities and operations, and the organizational boundaries
the offices/departments within the UN-secretariat in NY.
32
http://www.un.org/en/index.htlm
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The UN organizations that have not yet determined the scope of the organizations
EMS could, within the existing documentation they already have in place describing their geographical, functional and organizational boundaries, also include the
scope and the boundaries for the environmental management system. The UN organizations that have implemented an environmental management system according to ISO 14001 should already have a documentation that describes the scope of
the organization's environmental management system.
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3
Leadership
3.1
Leadership and commitment
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization should demonstrate leadership of and commitment to the EMS, as
a minimum by communicating to all staff the importance of effective environmental management, promoting continuous improvement of the EMS, ensuring that an
Environmental Policy is adopted and followed, that the significant environmental
aspects of the activities of the organization have been identified and that environmental objectives are established and achieved.
The organization’s senior management should also ensure that all EMS requirements are integrated into the relevant business processes of the UN organizations
and that the resources needed for the EMS to succeed are available. Finally, senior
management in the organization should support initiative and leadership demonstrated by managers in their areas of responsibility.
Current status and recommendations
The document “The future we want” (66/288) describes the needs for a high-level
political forum with the role to follow up on the implementation of sustainable
development with the purpose to avoid overlap with existing structures, bodies and
entities in a cost-effective manner. The tasks for the high-level forum, is among
others to
(a) Provide political leadership, guidance and recommendations for sustainable
development;
(b) Enhance integration of the three dimensions of sustainable development in a
holistic and cross-sectorial manner at all levels;
(f) Encourage high-level system-wide participation of United Nations agencies,
funds and programmes and invite to participate, as appropriate, other relevant multilateral financial and trade institutions and treaty bodies, within their respective
mandates and in accordance with United Nations rules and provisions;
(g) Improve cooperation and coordination within the United Nations system on
sustainable development programmes and policies;
The United Nations System demonstrates leadership of and commitment to environmental sustainability through the Environment Management Group (EMG) and
the Sustainable UN (SUN). United Nations Executive Heads approved in September 2011 a “Framework Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the
United Nations” providing guidance on the integration of sustainable development
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considerations into policies, programmes and facilities/operations of UN includes
agencies, funds, programmes and departments. Executive Heads also approved a
“Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the UN System”.
The UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination approved on 5 April 2013 that
all UN agencies will introduce environmental management systems (EMS). UN
heads of agency agreed to commit to implement EMS in all organizations through
a gradual and flexible approach, and also to “mainstream EMS in programming
and planning processes”. The high level committee on management (HLCM) has
EMS and environmental sustainability as part of its work programme for 20142016.
There are documents33 for the UN organizations that articulate the mandate of
senior management in the United Nations System to show leadership on environmental and social sustainability across their areas of responsibility and to integrate
measures, accordingly. There is for example a Joint Statement by Executive Heads
of EMG Members on advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the
United Nations system.
Examples include existing policies aimed at reducing costs, improving efficiency,
enhancing transparency and delivery of mandates related to sustainable development. Policy decisions adopted by the Secretary General`s greening the UN and by
member states pertaining to the need to all sectors in society including UN organizations to move towards improved sustainability.
From the description above the mandate seems to exist for the UN system to have
an EMS for the environmental sustainability issues but it needs to be implemented
by a strong commitment at the highest level of each UN organization. The commitment needs to address the requirements for environmental sustainability at the
various levels of activity and operation of the respective UN organization. For
example the UNDP has included compliance with environmental and social standards from the Integrated Results and Resources Framework standards into UNDP´s
Strategic plan 2014-201734.
From the survey on level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework,
30% of the respondents state that they have obtained executive level commitment
to conduct an EMS. Senior management commitment at various levels is essential
to confer on the environmental work the requisite importance within the organiza-
33
Rio declaration on environment and development, Climate Neutral Strategy, Strategic plan for Sustainability Management.
34
http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/Executive%20Board/2013/Second-regularsession/English/dp2013-40_ANNEX%20II.doc
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tion to support the inevitable changes an EMS will stimulate, as well as for approving the necessary resources.
One of the main findings and concluding remarks in the report “Environmental
profile of the United Nations system organizations” (JIU/REP/2010/1)35 by the
UN Joint Inspection Unit, is the importance of demonstrating leadership at the
senior level. The actions described in the report are being developed in a piecemeal
manner as the organizations of the United Nations system lack a formal and systematic framework for an integrated in-house environmental management system
based on explicit legislative mandates and applicable environmental norms and
standards, as well as administrative and managerial leadership at the senior level.
The coordinated effort across the system to strengthen the environmental strategy,
and the resulting improvement in environmental performance, undoubtedly requires the participation and endorsement of the executive heads of all the organizations, with respect to applicable environmental norms and standards and administrative and financial procedures.
The senior management in the UN organizations could (according to ISO 14001)
strengthen the leadership by undertaking an initial environmental review, adopting
an environmental policy and establishing internal environmental objectives. The
senior management should also work out procedures for reviewing the EMS, and
from the result take action for continuous improvement of the organization´s environmental performance. The requirements of an EMS should be integrated into the
business processes, and the resources needed for EMS support and initiatives
should be made available. The senior management should communicate to the
managers and the staff at different levels about the importance of effective environmental management in the organization. The senior management could also in
their leadership for environmental issues consider how the gender perspective
could be integrated in the EMS.
3.2
Environmental policies
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The environmental policy is a short public declaration that states the organization’s
intentions and commitment to improving its environmental performance. The environmental policy shall be appropriate to the purpose of the organization and its
context. The policy shall include a commitment to continually improve its EMS,
and to comply with applicable legislation and other requirements. The policy shall
point to the organization's significant environmental aspects and provide a frame-
35
notes/JIU%20Products/JIU_REP_2010_1_English.pdf
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work for setting and reviewing environmental objectives. It shall also be communicated within the organization and be available to the public.
Current status and recommendations
There are documents36 that provide guidance to the organizations in the United
Nations system for integrating environmental and social sustainability measures
across its activities by establishing an environmental policy for the organizations'
internal environmental work.
This shows that there is an understanding and awareness of the importance of
working within an EMS and specifically of the role an environmental policy could
play to facilitate the integration of environmental considerations into the work with
various operational procedures in the UN organizations. There is also an understanding that the environmental policy needs to be adopted by senior management
in the UN organizations and communicated to mangers and the staff at various
levels in the UN organizations.
It is also important to highlight the prerogative of the member states to decide
about certain kinds of environmental sustainability measures before the UN organizations undertake them. There are many constraints under which the UN system
operates, particularly the many stakeholders with strong and varied interests, which
could make it difficult to establish any environmental measures without the underpinning of a strong environmental policy.
Most of the UN organizations have not yet adopted an environmental policy. There
are only a few UN organizations that have certification according to ISO 14001,
and therefore adopted an environmental policy. FAO has adopted an EMS, consistent with the requirements of ISO 14001 though not certified, and is close to
presenting a corporate environmental policy to its governing body. From the survey
“level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework”, the respondents
state that the senior management has approved an environmental policy in 6 of the
17 organizations, of which five represent the Department of Field Support. They
have an environmental policy for UN Field Missions, requesting field missions to
implement an EMS37. Since the results from the survey were summarized, also
UNEP has had an environmental policy approved by the senior management.
The Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the
United Nations system (Interim Guide) describes and gives example of inter36
Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United Nations system and
the document “Environmental Management System Milestones Framework. Unite Platform, February
(2014)
37
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/issues/environment/approach.shtml
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agency mandate and the need for Corporate Commitments. One example is
DPKO´s corporate commitment that is reflected in its environmental policy (2009).
Some UN organizations have adopted environmental policies, but very few so far
with the purpose of fulfilling the requirements according to ISO 14001.
Senior management in UN organizations should adopt environmental policies that
conform to the standards of best practice. The environmental policy could be an
integrated part of other polices that the organization has already adopted. Senior
management in the UN organizations should establish a procedure for periodically
reassessing the policy, as well as for communicating it both internally and externally. When the environmental policy is developed for the first time, or revised, the
senior management should consider if the gender perspective could be relevant to
include in the environmental policy.
3.3 Organizational roles, responsibilities
and authorities
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The senior management in the organization must ensure that the responsibilities
and concomitant authorities are explicitly assigned and clearly communicated within the organization, so as to facilitate effective environmental management. Of
particular importance is the assignation of the responsibility and authority for ensuring that the EMS operates in conformity with its specifications. Senior management shall likewise assign responsibilities and concomitant authorities necessary for effective reporting on the performance of the EMS, including on environmental performance.
Current status and recommendations
There is an overall organization in place in the United Nations system for working
at the management level and at the focal point level for advancing environmental
and social sustainability within the UN organizations. See figure below.
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CEB
Endorses UN wide policies on e.g. climate neutrality and EMS .
HLCM
Responsible for ensuring
coordination in administrative and management
areas across the UN
System. Proposes decisions to CEB.
EMG
Implementation and policy
guidance on UN internal
sustainability.
The Executive Director
(ED) of UNEP as chair of
EMG, proposes decisions to
Interagency networks,
e.g. INFM
Policy and information
support and prepare CEB
decisions.
UNEP SUN
UNEP implement CEB
decisions on climate neutrality and EMS. SUN gives
technical support to EMG
and IMG, cooperates with
EMG and proposes deci-
IMG on environmental
sustainability
UN entities working with
concrete implementation of
CEB and EMG decisions.
Figure: UN actors working with internal environmental sustainability
From the survey “level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework”, the
respondents state that the step that most organizations have taken (70%) in general
is appointing a coordinator/EMS focal point. In addition to that, 40% of the respondents have developed a related task force and/or working group. Among the
respondents, 30% state that they have obtained executive level commitment to
conduct an EMS.
The UN organizations have defined the management structure that is already in
place in the organizations, as well as management roles, responsibilities and authorities under that structure. The information may be found on the UN organizations websites38 and in their annual reports. For an example, the UNEP website
38
http://www.unep.org/about/
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describes the organizational structure at the Headquarters and how the work is
distributed through its divisions, and regional, liaison and out-posted offices. Roles,
responsibilities and the concomitant authorities for environmental management are
not, however, mentioned on their website but in the EMS Manual. The roles and
responsibilities for the EMS should be integrated in the management structure that
is already in place in the UN organizations. When roles and responsibilities for the
environmental work are defined in the organization, the gender perspective should
be considered.
Experience has shown that it is important to have clearly defined responsibilities
with regard to the EMS and all other environmental initiatives, to ensure their successful implementation. Senior management in the UN organizations have not yet
identified all the roles that are necessary for fulfilling the requirements of an EMS
and assigning the responsibilities and concomitant authorities of those working for,
or on behalf of, the organization.
Just as the “Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the United Nations
System”, OIOS and JIU reports highlight, certain core functions should be managed on a common UN-wide basis, to streamline and coordinate efforts across the
UN system, and to avoid duplication of efforts and costs. The Sustainable UN Facility and the IMG on Sustainability Management is already tasked with several
coordination functions such as maintaining a shared web platform, prepare awareness and training material, prepare annual sustainability report for GHG emissions,
operate as a technical helpdesk and functioning as a contact point for interaction on
sustainability issues. This brings advantages such as economies of scale – a shared
function is cheaper rather than having each organization managing this issues individually – and provides for a coherent way of working with sustainability issues in
the spirit of the One UN reform.39 It is recommended to keep and preferably also
expand this central function both in terms of its scope, to also include e.g. support
on environmental compliance obligations, and in terms of more resources, as a
result of an increasing demand of support from UN organizations.
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Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the Unites Nations System
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4
Planning of the EMS
4.1
Compliance obligations
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall have an established way of identifying which compliance
obligations apply to them. The organization shall determine how its compliance
obligations pertain to its environmental aspects and how to meet the obligations.
Compliance obligations include legal and other mandatory obligations with which
the organization is required to comply, as well as those obligations over which the
organization has discretion whether or not to meet. These could be requirements of
donors, from the local community or in contracts with suppliers. Organizations
should maintain documented information of their compliance obligations.
Current status and recommendations
Legal compliance obligations
When the United Nations was established, the principle of immunity was established in the Charter. These rules were further explained in the Convention on the
Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, adopted in 1946. The Convention
runs as follows: “The United Nations, its property and assets wherever located and
by whomsoever held, shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process…” In
addition to this, the UN premises and property are covered by “inviolability”.40 In
other words, UN agencies are not obliged to comply with the environmental laws
and regulations that normally would apply to facilities and operations in the countries they operate in.
However, a key asset for UN organizations is their credibility. Demonstration that
UN organizations adhere to the same principles as those they promote is a fundamental requirement for preserving and reinforcing that credibility. The UN needs to
walk the talk to integrate in its management the principles of multilateral environmental agreements that it hosts, such as the Basel Convention, the Montreal Protocol and CITES. Environmental treaties and multilateral agreements that the UN
hosts can be found on the webpages for United Nation’s Treaty Collection and the
Audio-visual Library of International Law.41
40
The UN Audiovisual Library of International Law, http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cpiun-cpisa/cpiuncpisa.html, 2015-05-05
41
https://treaties.un.org/pages/UNTSOnline.aspx?id=1
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The Secretary-General has stated that the UN’s credibility will be seriously harmed
if we are not able to lead by example on the climate change agenda. Failure to walk
the talk on climate change would undermine the UN’s leadership.42
The importance of “practice what you preach” is also lifted in the report “Environmental profile of the United Nations Systems Organizations” by the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU). The JIU has made the observation that many secretariats of the
UN system organizations are not sure whether and how they should apply the multilateral environmental agreements which their Member States have adopted. In the
report the JIU outline the following in recommendation 7: “The Secretary-General,
acting as chairman of the Chief Executives Board, should issue a statement of his
initiative through the CEB towards defining a time-bound common framework for
in-house environmental strategies designed to promote compliance by its member
organizations with all multilateral environmental agreements.”
For the credibility of the work of the Organization, UN organizations try to comply
with what is considered good practice for environmental protection in the countries
and regional areas they operate in. In countries where environmental legislation is
weaker, the UN should establish best practices to the furthest extent possible and
show its leadership. In the above mentioned report by the JIU, the promotion of
UN premises greening in line with the local conditions of the host countries is recommended: “The executive heads of organizations should negotiate, wherever
appropriate, with the host country where their respective organizations are located,
agreements providing for support by the host country for the implementation of the
plans and policies of the UN system organizations to green their premises and offices, ultimately to be added as an annex to the headquarters agreement.”
Even if UN entities are not required to comply with legal requirements, their contractors (such as cleaners, caterers, construction works, freight companies, airlines,
partner NGOs etc.) are.43 There seem to be no real barrier for UN entities voluntarily choosing to comply.
UN organizations should review the applicability of national and local environmental compliance obligations to each of their premises in light of the status, privileges
and immunities of the agencies, the arrangements with the host Governments and
the legal arrangements governing ownership, lease or other use of the premises.44
For example, FAO in Rome has such a “Register of legal and other requirements”
and procedure as part of their EMS.
42
43
44
Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the United Nations System (2011)
Information from Georgina Stickels, WFP
The EMS Milestones Framework (2014)
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For the purpose of mainstreaming EMS within the UN, a measure could be made to
make sure that the competence in environmental law is available centrally within
the Organization, who progressively could review relevant legislation by region/country, a summary of the UN’s own treaties and protocols and describe how
the conventions apply to facilities and operations in UN organizations.
A central function within the UN, such as the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) at the
Secretariat, could provide a register over the internal UN compliance obligations
for environmental sustainability, and summarize how they affect the work on facilities and operations in general. Then each UN organization needs to interpret how
these compliance obligations are applicable to their specific location. OLA could
also provide general templates for procedures for identifying and evaluating legal
(external) compliance obligations on national and local level.
In the survey “Level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework” only 4
out of 17 organizations stated that legal and regulatory implications have been
identified.
Non-legal compliance obligations
Within the UN there are several policies, Secretary-General’s Bulletins45, agreements etc. that set the rules for the work.
Donors, evaluators, governments and NGOs are becoming increasingly aware of
safeguarding and sustainability needs.46 Environmental requirements are becoming
a precondition for Global Environment Facility (GEF), Green Climate Fund (GCF),
the Adaptation Fund and other donors. A concrete example of requirements from
Member States and donors that has resulted in internal compliance obligations is
UNEP’s Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability Framework (ESES
Framework) which is a response to the call by Member States in Rio+20 for
strengthening UNEP. It is compliant with the ‘Environmental and Social Safeguards’ Policy of the GEF. The Framework sets minimum sustainability standards
for UNEP and its implementing partners. The ESES Framework will initially focus
on projects.
Gender equality is an example of an area where compliance obligations from
Member States have been identified and applied on a strategic level as well as programme level and operational level.47 As explained on the webpage of UN Women: “The gender equality and women’s empowerment mandate is universally
agreed on by Member States and encompasses all areas of peace, development and
human rights. Gender equality is the overarching and long-term development goal,
45
46
47
https://hr.un.org/hr-doctype/secretary-generals-bulletin
UNEP Social and Economic Sustainability Framework, 2015
https://hr.un.org/content/policies-achieve-gender-equality-united-nations
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while gender mainstreaming is a set of specific, strategic approaches as well as
technical and institutional processes adopted to achieve that goal.”48
See Appendix 2 for a list of the voluntary environmental commitments made internally by the UN.
4.2
Significant environmental aspects
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization needs to identify the environmental aspects and associated environmental impacts:
 of its activities, products and services that it can control or influence, considering a life cycle perspective,
 related to planned or new developments or modified activities, products
and services, and
 associated with any potential or actual emergency situations.
The organization determines those environmental aspects that have or can have a
significant impact on the environment (significant environmental aspects) and
communicates them to various levels and functions of the organization. Some environmental aspects will be directly within the organizations control (direct aspects)
and some will be of a nature that can only be indirectly influenced (indirect aspects). As both can lead to significant environmental impacts, both should be assessed for significance. The criteria used to determine significant environmental
aspects should be documented.
Current status and recommendations
Direct environmental impact
In March 2013 the High Level Committee on Management (HLCM) concluded
that it is49: “Committed to the development and implementation of environmental
sustainability management systems in each organization, through a gradual, voluntary and flexible process as described in the ‘Strategic plan for environmental sustainability management in the UN system’, focusing on low-investment and highreturn initiatives, and through mainstreaming of EMS in the programming and
planning processes and increased coordination on this subject among the relevant
HLCM networks.”
48
49
http://www.unwomen.org/en/how-we-work/un-system-coordination/gender-mainstreaming
HLCM meeting, March 2013
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According to the Strategic plan50 for environmental sustainability management in
the UN system, p. 14, the following sustainability indicators will be compulsory for
all UN organizations to report on:
a. Emission of greenhouse gases (tonnes CO2 equivalents per year and per staff
member).
b. Fresh water use (indication of source and amount in m3 per year and per staff
member).
c. Generation and management of waste (tonnes and type of waste generated per
year and per staff member, and waste disposal methods used).
d. Qualitative description of awareness-raising or training of staff members on
environmental sustainability related to the organization’s functions and operations.
The above decision indicates that CEB has defined GHG emissions, fresh water
use, waste and environmental training of staff as potential significant environmental impact for all UN organizations. Since 2008, GHG emissions have been followed up annually by SUN in the Moving towards climate neutrality in the UN
system report. The indicator on waste will be monitored/followed up from 2015,
the indicators on training efforts will be monitored from 2016 and fresh water use
from 2017.51
In addition to the above, some UN organizations have developed their own criteria
to assess environmental aspects to make sure they implement measures to reduce
their environmental impact where it is most relevant. Examples are the UN University (UNU) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO). The assessment method used in FAO can be found in Appendix 3.
Indirect environmental impact
Several UN organizations are working with environmental issues in the context of
their mandate and therefore have an indirect impact on the environment. The UN
organizations have an indirect environmental impact by establish conventions and
treaties and through the mainstreaming of environmental issues into policies/strategies, and projects/programmes. In the UN system many organizations
have an environmental component in their mandate (see Appendix 2).
As an example UNEP describes in its annual report for 2012 that they are working
to provide a bridge between emerging sciences on a wide range of environmental
issues and strong polices that will support sustainable development. UNEP also
works with developing strong environmental governance that is essential to address
the environmental challenges with different partners as Member States, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and the private sector.
50
51
Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the United Nations System (2011)
HLCM meeting March 2015
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In 2014, the first session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) of
UNEP convened in Nairobi. The overarching theme was “Sustainable Development Goals and the Post 2015 Development Agenda, including sustainable consumption and production”. These new goals have the purpose to minimize the social and environmental impact in Member States and could also be a common base
for the UN organizations to develop measures with the purpose to contribute to
reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. The Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United Nations System was adopted in
2012, prepared by the members of the UN Environment Management Group
(EMG).
An Interim Guide was published in 2014 as a basic tool to help the UN organizations start implementing the Framework. The Guide is based on the UN organizations current practices for incorporating, implementing and reporting on sustainability measures.
During 2015, the Framework and the Interim Guide was piloted in eight agencies
across the UN system. Preliminary results of the pilots were presented to the EMG
senior officials in September 2015.
The standard ISO 26000 for social responsibility could be a tool for mainstreaming
sustainability measures in a systematic way in the UN organizations activities and
measure both the organizations´ positive environmental and social performance
and the impact. The ISO 14001 standard could also with its systematically way
being a help to understand how sustainability issues could be integrated in the organizations management system.
The indirect significant environmental aspects of the normative work (policies/strategies and programmes/projects) need to be determined to make accurate
prioritizations and reduce negative environmental impact and enhance positive
environmental impact. The method for identifying these indirect significant environmental aspects will differ from the method used for identifying the direct significant environmental aspects from facilities and operations.
A template for initial environmental review and for criteria used to determine significant environmental aspects could be made available through UNEP (SUN) to
facilitate the identification and assessment of environmental aspects. Also a template for the next step, identifying the significant environmental aspects that should
be connected to environmental objectives, could be provided. All templates should
be voluntary to use and seen as support and inspiration, since each UN organization
may need to customize the method for its specific needs and prerequisites. The
template for initial environmental review could also include how the gender perspective could be a part of the initial environmental review.
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Examples of environmental aspects from facilities management and operations and
from UN policy/strategies and programmes/projects can be found in Appendix 1.
4.3 Environmental objectives and planning
to achieve them
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall establish environmental objectives by taking into account its
significant environmental aspects, compliance obligations and risks and opportunities. When developing the objectives, the organization also needs to consider its
technological options and financial, operational and business requirements. The
environmental objectives shall be consistent with the organization’s environmental
policy, as well as measurable, monitored, documented and updated as appropriate.
The organization shall communicate the environ¬mental objectives both internally
and externally.
When planning how to achieve the environ¬mental objectives, the organization
shall decide which activities need to be performed and by when, what resources
will be required, who will be responsible and how the results will be evaluated.
Senior management may establish environmental objectives at the strategic level,
the tactical level or the operational level.
Current status and recommendations
The strategy for a climate-neutral UN was endorsed as early as 2007 and therefore
most UN organizations have now started to work towards that objective. On the
UN system wide level, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged in September 2014
the UN organizations to become climate neutral by 2020. The objective on EMS
was established more recently as a tool to reach emissions reductions and therefore
fewer UN organizations have started their implementation of an EMS. The heads
of UN organizations committed in 2013 to implement EMS through a gradual,
voluntary and flexible process.
In connection to the latter, the CEB concluded that it will be compulsory for all UN
organizations to report on GHG emissions, fresh water use, waste and environmental training of staff. Since 2008, GHG emissions have been followed up annually
by SUN in Moving towards climate neutrality in the UN system report. The indicator on waste will be monitored from 2015, the indicators on training efforts from
2016 and on fresh water use from 2017.52 The above-mentioned commitments call
52
HLCM meeting March 2015
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on environmental actions, and can be said to lay the foundation for environmental
objectives for facilities and operations within the UN.
As mentioned above, the direction has been pointed out by high level management
so there should be no uncertainty for the UN organizations on where to start if they
decide to improve their environmental performance from facilities and operations.
In addition to this, each UN organization could in a systematic way, e.g. using an
EMS, identify its unique significant environmental impact to make sure its resources and measures are directed towards the most relevant environmental issues.
Most UN organizations have not established measurable environmental objectives
at organization level but some have started or are just about to start. For example
UNEP has established targets that include a 5% reduction in CO2-emission (by
number of staff) that will be partially achieved through a 5% reduction in travel
budget by the end of 2015 compared to 2014.53
In the survey “Level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework” 6 out
of 17 participating organizations stated that objectives and targets have been identified.
In the UN context it is also important with the eight Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halving the
proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation, all by
the target date of 2015 – that were established following the Millennium Summit of
the United Nations in 2000. They form a plan agreed by the UN Member States
and the world’s leading development institutions. The UN has been working with
governments, the civil society and other partners to build on the momentum generated by the MDGs and carry on with a post-2015 development agenda, including
the process of developing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).54 Many of
the MDGs and SDGs can be seen as environmental objectives for the work with
policies and programmes, i.e. for indirect environmental impact on the UN systemwide level.
Senior management in each UN organization may establish environmental objectives at the strategic level, the tactical level or the operational level. The strategic
level includes the highest levels of the organization and objectives at this level are
applicable to the whole organization. The tactical and operational levels can include objectives for specific units or functions within the organization that are
compatible with the organization’s overall strategic direction. Senior management
should establish environmental objectives throughout the operations and facilities
management divisions of the organization and convey clear expectations to manag53
54
Information from UNEP in Nairobi, 2015-05-15
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
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ers at different levels in the organization to establish plans to reach the environmental objectives.
Environmental objectives for the work in programmes, such as establishment of
international agreements, should be formulated on the highest level of the organization.
Many UN organizations establish a programme of work that outlines the work for a
4-year period, including objectives. Environmental objectives should be part of the
programme of work. Every six months, the work is followed up by the Committee
of Permanent Representatives (CPR) and possible changes and noncompliance
must be commented by the UN organization.55
Strategic objectives and performance measures are part of the “Senior Manager’s
Compact” which is a kind of agreement between the Secretary-General and Special
Representative of the Secretary-General/Head of Mission.56 At present, environmental objectives and environ¬mental performance are not part of the compacts. If
they were to be included in the future, an increase in environmental performance
can be assumed.
There does not appear to be any common UN method for developing environmental objectives and the initiative is left to individual organizations. It could be useful
to have a voluntary template and a method for a coherent and common UN procedure for developing environmental objectives.
To achieve the environmental objectives, action plans should be developed to outline the necessary steps. The action plans should describe the required actions,
when they should be taken and who will be responsible. It should also include a
description of resources that will be set aside for the achievements of the objectives, and how the outcome should be evaluated.
The UN organizations could integrate both environmental objectives and action
plans in existing strategic documents and activity plans. They could also consider
the gender perspective when the objectives and the actions plans will be developed.
A good example comes from FAO, which has inserted the planned environmental
measures in the existing divisional activity plans that are endorsed by the division
manager.
55
56
www.unep.org/about/sgb/CommitteeofPermanentRepresentatives/tabid/129502/Default.aspx
Template for Senior Manager’s Compact
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4.4
Risks and opportunities
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall determine the risks and opportunities that may be related to
the significant environmental aspects, compliance obligations or other issues, such
as those created by external environmental conditions or by any internal circumstances. The organization shall determine risks that can affect its ability to achieve
the intended outcome of its environmental management system, or opportunities to
achieve continual improvement, and therefore should be addressed. The results of
this determination are input for establishing the environmental objectives.
An environmental aspect having the potential to cause an adverse impact to the
environment can be considered a “threat” or a “risk”, whereas an environmental
aspect having the potential to cause a beneficial environmental impact can be considered an “opportunity”.
This chapter in ISO 14001 in closely connected to the chapters “The organization
and its context” and “Stakeholders and interested parties”.
Current status and recommendations
When planning the operations in the organization, risks and opportunities concerning environmental issues should be considered and be put in relation to the strategies and objectives of the organization. A concrete example that has been mentioned earlier would be the environmental requirements that are becoming a precondition for receiving funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and
other donors. By implementing an Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability Framework (ESES Framework) for projects, UNEP has mitigated the risk of
negative environmental impact and the risk of not receiving funding, and changed
it into an opportunity and competitive advantage compared to other applicants to
the GEF.
The UN organizations have great opportunities to contribute to beneficial environmental impact. Mainly they can do this through their coordinating role in international agreements, such as the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals,
policies/strategies and programmes/projects. They can also contribute to beneficial
environmental impact through their internal environmental work with facilities and
operations, where they can be a driving force and a role model for suppliers, partner organizations, governments etc.
When the UN organizations identify their significant environmental aspects, legal
compliance and environmental objectives, they should at the same time be able to
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determine the risks springing from their activities, which could have a big impact
on the environment. They could also consider if the gender issues should be a part
of the risk- and opportunities assessment.
The UN organizations should in their EMS establish methods to manage internal
and external risks and opportunities. As part of these methods they should assess
the internal processes they have in the organization and that they could influence,
and identify stakeholders and interested parties and their needs and requirements
connected to environmental issues. Then it should be evaluated if these needs and
requirements should lead to changes in the EMS, such as new environmental objectives.
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5
Support for the EMS
5.1
Resources
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization should determine and provide the resources needed for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the environmental management system. Resources include human resources, natural resources, infrastructure, technology and financial resources.
Current status and recommendations
The United Nations system of organizations covers a wide variety of organizational
units (centres, agencies, organizations, commissions, programmes etc.) with different institutional and functional structures. The principal organs and subsidiary
bodies of the United Nations Secretariat are included under the regular budget of
the United Nations, as authorized by the General Assembly. Other agencies of the
UN system, however, have their own regular budgets or are financed solely from
voluntary contributions. These latter two categories, moreover, possess a certain
degree of autonomy. The organizations within the United Nations system also vary
considerably both in size and as regards their activities. Within the UN system, there are documents on the United Nations website that
generally describe how the UN system is funded and what partners and donors
contribute resources to the various organizations within the United Nations. On the
UN organizations website, the funding is described more in detail. The website has
information concerning the sources of funding, the partners and the donors. There
is also documentation describing funding strategy, partnership policy, data, guidance and template for agreements, annual report etc.
The UN system has a well-developed system to manage the financing of the various initiatives with its partners. It is well documented and communicated externally
on the UN organizations website.
From the survey “level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework”,
almost 25% of the respondents had identified necessary resources for implementation of the action plan for environmental issues, mostly in the facilities budgets or
via the establishment of internal levies on travel.
A key factor in United Nations organizations’ implementing an environmental
management system will be the appropriate allocation of resources to implement
the EMS and the measures the related action plan will entail. The allocation of
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resources, not least human resources, for the EMS should be an integrated part of
the ordinary budget process that is already in place in the UN organizations. The
senior management at the different levels should connect the budget issues for the
EMS to the strategic plan that they develop and implement for the task that they are
responsible for.
Calculations in the Business Case for Environmental Management Systems in the
United Nations indicate that systematic measurement and management of environmental impacts through an EMS could help the UN system as a whole to
achieve reductions in operating costs of around 300 million USD per year through
improved management of electricity and other utilities, fuel, travel and some office-related procurement, which collectively cost the UN an estimated 2.7 billion
USD in 2010.57
Requirements according to ISO 14001
Competence
The organization determines the competence of all people doing work under its
control and retains appropriate documented information as evidence of competence. This applies to any person whose work has the potential to cause a significant environmental impact or otherwise affect the organization’s environmental
performance. The organization assesses this competence on the basis of appropriate
education, training and/or experience and, where applicable, takes action to build
the necessary competence and then evaluates the effectiveness of these efforts.
Awareness
Those doing work under the organization’s control should be aware of the organization’s environmental policy, as well as the significant environmental aspects and
related actual or potential impacts associated with their work and their expected
contribution to the effectiveness of the EMS. Similarly, they should understand the
benefits of enhanced environmental performance associated with their work and
the implications of not conforming to the requirements of the EMS, including identified compliance obligations.
Current status and recommendations
Within the UN system, the UN organizations have different roles and mandates/missions and thus also a greater or lesser interest in and support of environmental issues. There are UN organizations whose entire role and mandates include
environmental issues (UNEP), some in which the role and the mandate contain
some environmental issues (WFP, FAO) and also UN organizations whose role and
mandate do not include any environmental issues at all.
57
The Business Case for Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
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Consequently, knowledge and awareness of environmental issues varies from one
organization to another. The UN organizations describe their mission with environmental issues on their websites. There are reports and documents describing the
different UN organizations' environmental work related to the mission. Knowledge
and awareness of how environmental issues should be more integrated in the UN
organizations' policies, projects and programmes need to be improved and linked
together with a systematic EMS implemented in the UN organizations.
There are reports and documentation at some of the UN organizations websites
describing the organizations' environmental work related to their role and activities.
Overall, a need for enhanced knowledge and awareness on how environmental
issues could be integrated in the organizations' policies, projects and programmes
has been observed.
In the UN, an attempt has been made to address this need within the frames of the
EMG through the introduction of a Framework for Advancing Environmental and
Social Sustainability in the United Nations System.
In the UN organizations that are working to reduce their environmental impact
from operation and facilities, such as buildings, travel, conferences and meetings,
there is a certain amount of environmental knowledge and awareness among the
staff. In the organizations that have introduced components of an environmental
management system, there is also knowledge of how to work systematically on
environmental issues according to plan, do, check and act, so as to improve the
environmental performance of the organization.
The United Nations organizations work with operation and facilities is not described on the UN organizations' web pages.
To increase awareness and knowledge of environmental issues within the United
Nations system, UNEP launched in 2010 the campaign “Greening the Blue”. The
campaign is delivered through a web portal where all materials available to UN
organizations to train staff on internal environmental sustainability, share best practices and provide online tutorials (for instance on staff awareness and on sustainable procurement) are available for free. The UN sustainability tutorial is mandatory
in a number of UN organizations and is included as part of the core training packages for staff in a number of UN organizations. There are also other58 initiatives for
environmental trainings within the UN. For example on UNITAR’s website there is
training under the title "Environment, Natural Resources and UN Peacekeeping",
UN-NGLS training on Gender and Climate Change and training held by the UN
58
http://www.unitar.org/event/by/PTP
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College in Turin as training on Environmental Sustainability, Climate Change and
Disaster Risk Reduction.
Within the annual greenhouse gas inventory, the UN organizations should report to
UNEP (SUN) their annual GHG emissions, but also what they have done to reduce
these emissions, including the issue of environmental training, awareness and competence. An environmental management system for UN organizations should have
a large component devoted to creating the right competence and expertise in the
field of the environment and also competence how gender issues are related to for
an example to climate changes.
5.2
Communication
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization should have a process for internal and external communications
relevant to their EMS that allows the organization to provide and obtain information relevant to its EMS, including its significant environmental aspects, environmental performance and compliance obligations. When planning its communications process, the organization is to take into account its compliance obligations
and ensure that environmental information communicated is reliable and consistent
with information generated within the EMS. The communication process is to include decisions on what the organization will communicate, when to communicate,
with whom to communicate and how to communicate.
The organization must respond to relevant communications from stakeholders
concerning their EMS and retain documented information as evidence of these
communications, as appropriate. The information received by the organization may
contain requests from interested parties for specific information related to the management of the environmental aspects, or may provide general impressions or
views on the way the organization carries out that management.
The organization must also communicate internally across their various internal
levels and functional units, as appropriate. In so doing, the organization must ensure that these communications reach all relevant parties doing work under the
organization’s control, whether or not they are full-time staff.
The organization should externally communicate information relevant to the EMS,
as determined by their communication process and as required by their compliance
obligations.
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Current status and recommendations
Based on how the United Nations system is structured and the governance of the
UN, there are both internal and external communication channels. They are used
for communication between various UN organizations in the United Nations system and between the United Nations organizations and their stakeholders, such as
different Member States and donors. The UN organizations communicate their
missions internally and externally through their respective websites, meetings,
networks, conferences etc. On UN organizations’ websites, there are descriptions
of the organization and mandates and how they work with environmental issues
within the mandate.
UNEP (SUN) communicates the environmental work that it has a mandate to carry
out and the environmental efforts of various UN organizations. The website
(Greening the Blue) communicates information, support and tools to the UN organizations in their environmental work concerning operations and facilities. The website has information and gives support to the UN organizations on how they can
communicate their environmental efforts within their organization and in various
meetings.
The United Nations organizations are good at externally describing the environmental efforts that they have been mandated to carry out. This is summed up in UN
organizations’ annual reports. However, there is no external information on UN
organizations’ websites about their internal environmental work and how they
work with EMS. UN organizations could integrate communication about their
internal environmental work or EMS in the existing internal and external channels
used by the organization.
It is important for the UN organizations to identify the most important environmental documented information about the EMS and the organizations environmental
performance that should be both internal and external communicated for ensuring
the mechanism for accountability and transparency within the UN organizations. In
the communication process it could be relevant to identify how the gender issues
will be considered. The Interim Guide for the “Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United Nations System” lists minimum
essential building blocks for supporting the implementation of the Framework.
5.3
Documentation
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The extent of documented information for an EMS can differ from one organization to another due to the size of the organization, its type of activities, processes,
products and services, the complexity of processes and their interaction and the
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competence of the persons doing the work. The primary focus, however, should be
on the effective implementation of the EMS and on environmental performance,
not on a complex document information control system.
The documented information for the EMS may be integrated with other information management systems in the organization. It does not have to be in the form
of a manual.
When creating and updating documented information, the organization must ensure
that identification and description are recorded and accessible and that the format
and media are appropriate. The organization must also review and approve the
information for suitability and adequacy. The organization must further address the
following activities, as applicable to the control of documented information related
to the EMS: distribution, access, retrieval and use, storage and preservation, including preservation of legibility.
Current status and recommendations
With regard to the documentation of the United Nations environmental activities,
this can broadly be divided as follows:


External documentation arising from UN organizations carrying out their
activities, for example working with international conventions, declarations and other agreements between states and other actors in the international community.
Internal documents that describe how the United Nations system and related UN organizations govern activities on the basis of the role they have
from the UN Charter and other relevant resolutions adopted by the general
Assembly.
United Nations efforts to work with their mission to establish international agreements are well documented and described in the UN system. The UN's work in
establishing international agreements between countries and partners should always
take into account the environmental dimension, if there is one. There may be
agreements that only concern environmental issues, some contain only a few environmental issues and others do not address environmental issues at all.
When the UN organizations are working to draw up these agreements, environmental aspects such as travel, sustainable procurement and conferences should be taken
into account. This work is in some cases documented and described and in some
cases it is not included at all.
What can be gleaned of these documents is that environmental considerations are
not systematically integrated into the ordinary governance of the United Nations
system. There is no documentation that describes in general how the UN system is
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working according to the requirements of an EMS and it is difficult to find information on the websites about the UN organization’s EMS.
The UN organizations should identify the most important environmental activities
or procedures that should be documented information for ensuring the mechanism
for accountability and transparency within the UN organizations. The Interim
Guide for the “Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability
in the United Nations System” lists minimum essential building blocks for supporting the implementation of the Framework. Transparency is a precondition for monitoring and measuring accountability. Therefore documented information and access to the information are key aspects.
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6
Operation
6.1
Operational planning and control
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall plan, implement and control the processes needed to meet
environmental management system requirements and to prevent deviation from the
environmental policy, environmental objectives and compliance obligations. The
organization shall control planned changes and review the consequences of unintended changes, taking action to mitigate any negative environmental effects.
The organization shall ensure that outsourced processes are controlled or influenced. Consistent with a life cycle perspective, the organization shall determine
environmental requirements for the procurement of products and services and establish controls to ensure that environmental requirements are considered in the
process for the development, delivery, use and end-of-life treatment of its products
and services. The organization shall consider the need to provide information about
potential significant environmental impacts during the delivery of the products or
services.
Current status and recommendations
The UN organizations should identify the management and operational processes
that are necessary for implementing and maintaining the EMS. It could for example
be the management processes and the procedures for implementing, maintaining
and controlling the environmental impact from the organization, the environmental
policy and the process for identifying and evaluating the legal compliance. The
operational process could be from a life cycle perspective, for example describing
the process for minimizing the waste generation in the organization and the process
for integrating and evaluating environmental safeguards in programmes and projects on an operational level.
Some of the UN organizations, for example the UN Secretariat, have documented
processes and procedures for the control of processes to manage waste generation,
energy use and water consumption. There are also processes for procurement and
for outsourced processes in place.59 There could also be processes that consider
environmental aspects in programmes and projects. For example, IFAD have requirements for ensuring consideration of environmental and social sustainability in
its process for quality assurance review of its projects and programmes. UN organ59
http://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/secretariat/index.html
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izations should develop the control of their processes considering environmental
requirements according to best practice.
Concerning ownership of facilities, there is a mix between buildings owned or
leased by the UN. In some cases the UN only leases parts of an office space. These
differences impact the extent of control that the UN organizations have over the
buildings used for their operations. This means that the UN organizations either
have their own facility manager or work closely with the landlord to minimize their
environmental impact from facilities, e.g. by monitoring and implementing
measures to reduce electricity use.
A way to plan and control the processes to minimize environmental impact in operations is to use environmental safeguards (also called policies, framework or
standards). Several UN agencies are developing or already applying environmental
safeguards, such as The World Bank60 and UNDP61. In these safeguards for the
environmental work the gender issues could, when relevant, also be taken into
account.
The effect of UN procurement decisions is very far-reaching because of the value
of the goods and services that the UN purchases: approximately US$ 14.3 billion in
2011. Almost 60% of this is from developing countries62. The adoption of rules
and procedures requiring UN procurers to include sustainability considerations in
their purchasing decisions can have a significant impact on the enabling of a green
economy, with a lateral potential spin off for poverty reduction. Sustainable Procurement is one of the thematic priorities of the High Level Committee on Management’s Procurement Network (HLCM PN), implemented through its Working
Group on Sustainable Procurement.63
As EMS’s are implemented in the UN organizations, more systematic ways of
planning, implementing and controlling processes to meet the EMS requirements
will be developed. This could for example be to perform the process in a specified
way (i.e. documented procedure) or having competent personnel to assure desired
results. In that way the organization can prevent deviation from their environmental
policy, environmental objectives and compliance obligations.
60
https://consultations.worldbank.org/consultation/review-and-update-world-bank-safeguard-policies
61
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/social-and-environmental-sustainability-inundp/SES/
62
63
2012 UN Annual statistical report on procurement
http://www.greeningtheblue.org/sites/default/files/SUN%20SP%202-pager_e-version_12.11.12_0.pdf
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6.2 Environmental emergency
preparedness and response
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall establish and implement a procedure describing how it will
respond to potential environmental emergency situations and accidents. The procedure should periodically be tested and reviewed. The organization shall also take
action to prevent the occurrence of environmental emergency situations and accidents.
Current status and recommendations
Having an emergency management system in place facilitates the introduction of
procedures for environmental emergency preparedness and response. This could
for example be fire emergency procedures that need to be complemented with a
chapter on how to make sure that firefighting water is not polluting the groundwater or rivers in the surroundings, that poisonous gases are not released from electrical equipment in case of fire and procedures for the control of polluting spillages
from e.g. fuel or chemicals. Other environmental emergency situations to consider
when establishing these procedures are power failure, explosion and flooding.
It is however important to distinguish the difference between having an emergency
response for an incident relating to the organization’s operations (such as a sewage
spill, a fuel leakage after a road accident, etc.) and ‘emergency preparedness’ as
defined in humanitarian organizations, i.e. response by agencies to external emergencies caused by conflict, natural disaster etc.64 The emergency response described in the EMS context is the former.
As an example, there are documents concerning emergency preparedness and response at the UN Secretariat at headquarters in New York. There are several procedures and instructions in place to ensure emergency preparedness and response
covering personnel and assets. One of them is an ‘Emergency Preparedness Guide
for UN Staff in New York’65 which describes the appropriate response during and
after different types of emergencies such as fires, natural disasters, armed attack
etc. There is also information on testing of the procedures, such as fire drills.66
64
65
Information from Georgina Stickels, WFP
Emergency Preparedness – a guide for UN Staff in NYC (2014)
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UN RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR STAFF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
(2013)
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Directed to key functions and other, there is a policy on the Organizational Resilience Management System (ORMS). The ORMS is a comprehensive emergency
management system, linking actors and activities across preparedness, prevention,
response and recovery, to enhance the organization’s resilience and ability to deal
with crisis in a coherent and coordinated manner.67
Business Continuity Management (BCM) in the UN Secretariat is considered a
management process that strengthens the organization's ability to respond to risks
and to maintain continuity of its critical business processes at a minimum agreed
level following disruptive events. One such risk the UN must be prepared for is a
pandemic outbreak. The purpose of the UN/NY Pandemic Preparedness Plan for an
Influenza Pandemic is to ensure the implementation of specific measures in relation to a pandemic outbreak.68 The UN/NY Pandemic Preparedness Plan for an
Influenza Pandemic is built in the same way as environmental management system
procedures are structured, e.g. it includes scope and roles and responsibilities.
The UN Secretariats documentation shows that there is a structured and systematic
way of working with emergency preparedness and response for personnel and
physical assets, i.e. there is already a management system in place to work with
these issues. We make the assumption that this is also the case in other UN agencies, since it is an important area, often regulated by health and safety regulations.
Though the UN Secretariat has documented procedures for emergency preparedness and response for personnel and physical assets, environmental emergency
preparedness and response is not included in these.
The recommendation is that the UN agencies complement their emergency management systems with procedures for environmental consideration.
67
68
Policy on the Organizational Resilience Management System (ORMS) (2013)
The UN/NY Pandemic Preparedness Plan for an Influenza Pandemic
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7
Performance evaluation
7.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and
evaluation
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization is to determine what aspects of its operations could have significant environmental impact and therefore need to be monitored and measured
against indicators. The purpose is to ensure that the organization meets its compliance obligations, maintains sufficient operational controls and/or progresses further
towards the organization’s environmental objectives. The basis for the selection of
methods for monitoring, measuring, analysing and evaluating is to ensure valid
results.
The organization is to evaluate its environmental performance and provide input
into the management review of the evaluation of the effectiveness of their EMS.
Further, the organization is to retain documentation of the monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation results and communicate information relevant to its
environmental performance both internally and externally.
Current status and recommendations
Concerning facilities and operation, the UN organizations report their greenhouse
gas emissions to UNEP (SUN). UNEP (SUN) has the role of guiding the UN organizations in their reporting and compiles the information into an annual emission
inventory report. The UN GHG reporting is based on the GHG protocol and slightly adapted to the UN-system context. Description of methodology and procedures
for this is available on the www.greeningtheblue.org website where organizations
(one by one) also report on their overall environmental performance.
The UN organizations need also to choose a method for monitoring, measure and
evaluate their environmental issues in policy/strategies and programme/projects.
For example, UNEP’s environmental activities regarding policymaking, projects
and programmes are described in the annual reports. These reports also contain a
statement of the internal environmental work, for example what has been done to
reduce emissions in accordance with the annual financial report to UNEP (SUN).
When monitoring, measuring and evaluating the environmental issues, the gender
perspective could also be considered.
From the survey “level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework”,
only 2 respondents out of 17 state that they have carried out an internal audit.
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The UN organizations that intend to implement an EMS will need to have in place
management and operational process and procedures to monitor, measure and
evaluate their EMS and environmental performance according to indicators. The
UN organizations need to strengthen the work with performance indicators that are
common for the UN system and also individual indicators for different kind of UN
organizations. These procedures will need to follow common guidance established
at system wide level via the strategic plan for Sustainability Management system.
The international standard 14031 for Environmental management – Environmental
performance evaluation – Guidelines (ISO 14031:2013) could give guidance to the
UN organizations to have a method for the environmental performance evaluation
and the work with using common indicators. The standard gives example of indicators for monitoring and evaluates management and operational performance and
the environmental condition. In the standard you could also find guidance for how
you could communicate the environmental performance with indicators. EMAS has
worked out guidance for currently developing Sectorial Reference Documents
(SRD) on Best Environmental Management Practice in various areas. This could
also be used for the work with indicators (see also Chapter 9.2 Continual improvement).
The UN organizations that are implementing an EMS should also have a sustainability report containing a statement of the status of the environmental performance
and what have been done to reduce for example its emissions. The reporting is
important for the UN organizations’ accountability and transparency. For instance
FAO has an annual corporate environmental report, and the World Bank report on
its sustainability performance annually through the GRI standard, just as UNOPS
also will do soon.
Within the United Nations, procedures for monitoring and reporting of environmental processes and activities should be integrated so that they become a natural
part of the existing monitoring and evaluation system within the UN.
7.2
Evaluation of compliance obligations
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization is to implement a process to evaluate their conformity with their
compliance obligations. The frequency and timing of these evaluations may vary
depending on the nature and importance of the requirement being evaluated, on
variations in operating conditions and on the organization’s past performance;
however, all compliance obligations need to be evaluated.
The organization is to determine the frequency with which compliance will be
evaluated, to evaluate compliance and to take action, if needed. They must also
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develop their knowledge and understanding of their status in conforming to compliance obligations and must retain documented information of all compliance
evaluation results.
Current status and recommendations
The UN Charter describes the UN tasks, role, mandate and rules of procedure and
how the UN should be organized. It also specifies the member states' rights and
obligations. The UN Charter sets out in its introduction the purpose of the United
Nations and the overall objectives. The areas that are described are the UN’s role in
working for peace and security, human rights, gender and social and economic
development.
In the UN Charter's first chapter, Section 1 where the objectives and principles are
described, nothing is mentioned about the importance of working with environmental issues in the UN system.
Neither in the introduction nor in later chapters of the Charter is the environment
mentioned as a specific area for the United Nations to work on. While the historical
context at the time of signature (1945) possibly was not one in which environmental matters were relevant, there have been a number of subsequent amendments to
make the charter a more up-to date document. Ideally, therefore an amendment
should be proposed to integrate environmental stewardship into the UN Charter
together with other issues that the UN has responsibility for in the light of the concept of sustainable development. Social and economic development is dependent
on developments in the field of the environment.
The UN Charter describes under the heading “special provisions article 105” that
the members, agents and officials of the organization will receive the privileges
and immunities as are necessary for the full independence to carry out their duties.
The rules are more closely described in the Convention on the Privileges and Immunity of the United Nations (Chapter 5.1 Compliance obligations.)
In some areas, there are regulations that the UN follows, for example concerning
procurement of goods and services. UN organizations have to establish a variety of
agreements with partners and they have to be evaluated. These partnerships are
described on the UN organizations' websites.
The UN organization that has an environmental certification according to ISO
14001 has adopted procedures for evaluating compliance obligations. The evaluation of the legal compliance and other requirements should be integrated into the
existing internal and external evaluation of the UN organizations. In the evaluation
of the legal compliance and other requirements in the field of the environment,
risks and opportunities should also be identified and followed up.
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There is no information on the UN organizations' websites about how the internal
evaluation of the legal compliance, regulations and other requirements in the field
of the environment is done in a systematic way and how rules on privileges and
immunities affect the rules that are to be followed in the field of the environment.
The UN system has a well-developed system for reviewing and monitoring its own
activities on the basis of its own internal regulations (including GA decisions, SG
bulletins, and directives of management) and work programmes. This is done by
continuous assessments and audits, both internally and by external organizations.
For an example the review report of the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit on
the Environmental Profile of the United Nations system organizations. The report
has a recommendation that the General Assembly should periodically review the
application of principles and policies on in-house environmental management on
the basis of the report of the Secretary-General.
Within the scope of this existing system, legal compliance and other requirements
in the field of the environment should be followed up and evaluated continually.
The international standard 14031, mentioned in the Chapter 8.1, give guidance to
the UN organizations how they could evaluate the environmental compliance obligations with indicators.
In the United Nations Charter and other governing documents, it is appropriate to
describe that the environment is one of the areas which the UN should promote
within its activities and should thus be monitored and evaluated as part of the system that already exists within the United Nations.
7.3
Internal environmental audit
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization is to conduct internal environmental audits at planned intervals to
evaluate their EMS and environmental performance. Auditors should be independent of the activity and unit being audited, wherever practicable, and should in all
cases act in a manner that is free from bias and conflict of interest. The organization is to identify adequate resources for conducting internal audits, including for
adequate training of auditors to conduct environmental audits.
The organization is to implement and maintain an audit programme (delineating
audit cycle, frequency, methods, scope, responsibilities and time scale). The extent
of the audit programme should be based on the size and nature of the organization,
as well as the complexity and level of maturity of the EMS.
The organization must retain documented information as evidence of their implementation of the audit programme and the audit results. The results of the audits
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are to be reported to relevant management, including the senior management of the
organization.
Current status and recommendations
Special bodies within the UN have the responsibility for continually reviewing/auditing and controlling the UN organizations' activities on the basis of the
mission they have to accomplish. For example UNEP Joint Inspection Unit (JIU)
has done an evaluation report concerning “The Environmental profile of the United
Nations system organizations”. The Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)69
is the internal oversight body of the United Nations. The office assists the Secretary-General in fulfilling his oversight responsibilities in respect of the resources
and staff of the Organization through the provision of audit, investigation, inspection, and evaluation services. On the OIOS website the aims for the office is described as to be an agent of change that promotes responsible administration of
resources, a culture of accountability and transparency, and improved programme
performance.
As an example, the work that UNEP is doing concerning its environmental activities, such as working with the conventions for biodiversity, can be both internally
and externally audited.
Some of the UN organizations have developed processes for evaluating the environmental sustainability issues, for an example IFAD´s quality assurance review
processes for its agriculture investment projects and programmes.
Within the United Nations, there is no specific organization that has the role of
conducting internal environmental audits according to the requirements of ISO
14001. UNEP (SUN) helps the UN organizations with consulting support for performing environmental audits.
From the survey “level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework”,
only 2 out of 17 respondents have carried out an internal audit. This data also reflects the fact that several organizations are in their initial stage of the EMS implementation and the audit phase has not been reached yet.
The UN organizations that have an environmental certification according to ISO
14001 or have implemented an EMS in accordance with best practice should have
procedures in place to conduct internal and external environmental audits. Other
UN organizations should, within the framework of their internal control of their
activities, integrate procedures for performing internal environmental audits.
69
https://oios.un.org/
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UNEP (SUN) could have a role of coordinating internal environmental audits within the UN organizations by supporting internal environmental auditors with regard
to training and sharing experience through networking. The internal environmental
auditors from different UN organizations could also audit each other's organizations and share common knowledge. If the gender issue is relevant for the environmental work it should also be evaluated.
There is an international standard ISO Guidelines for quality and/or environmental
management systems auditing (ISO 19011:2002) that gives guidance by presenting
a method for how audits could be done.
7.4
Management review
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The senior management at the organization should review the organization's EMS
and its environmental performance at planned intervals, to ensure continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. These management reviews are to include consideration of the status of actions from previous management reviews and changes
in;





external and internal issues relevant to the EMS,
compliance obligations,
significant environmental aspects and risks and opportunities associated
with the activities of the organization,
the extent to which environmental objectives have been met, and
information on the organization’s environmental performance.
The environmental management review is to include trends in nonconformities and
corrective actions, monitoring and measurement results, conformity to compliance
obligations and audit results. The review also includes trends in communications
from external, interested parties, opportunities for continual improvement in environmental performance and adequacy of resources required for maintaining an
effective EMS. If the gender issue is relevant for the environmental work it should
also be a part of the management review.
The organization must retain documented information as evidence of the results of
all environmental management reviews.
Current status and recommendations
The UN system and the UN organizations have procedures in place for evaluating
and reporting their activities to senior management. The reporting system is described on the UN website and the UN organizations websites. Environmental
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issues are for an example reported and reviewed by the Environment Management
Group (EMG) (Chapter organisation 4:3 organizational roles, responsibilities and
authorities) and at the UN-secretariat there is a Steering Group on Environmental
Sustainability Management. The United Nations organizations that have an environmental certification according to ISO 14001 or that have introduced an environmental management system in accordance with best practice have procedures
for periodically reviewing the EMS and the organization’s environmental performance at senior management level.
The Joint Inspection Unit´s recommend in its report of “Environmental profile of
the United system Organizations” that there should be an regular reporting to the
General Assembly on the state of implementation of the climate neutral initiative to
identify further administrative and budgetary implications of such environmental
measures, and in particular carbon offsetting, in order for the General Assembly to
support their implementation with the concurrence of Member States.
In the document “The future we want” (66/288) paragraph 84-85c describes the
needs for a High-level political forum with the purpose to follow up on the implementation of sustainable development and should avoid overlap with existing structures, bodies and entities in a cost-effective manner. Paragraph 85a-l describes the
tasks for the high-level forum.
There is no documentation available that describes how the UN organizations are
following up their environmental efforts at various management levels according to
the requirements of ISO 14001 and EMAS. The UN organizations should be able
to integrate the review of the EMS and the environmental performance at the different management levels in the organizations that already exist.
7.5
Sustainability report
Requirements according to EMAS
According to the requirements of EMAS, the organization is to prepare every year
an environmental sustainability report that includes comprehensive information
regarding the organization’s:





structure and activities
environmental policy and EMS
environmental aspects and impacts
environmental programme, objectives and targets
environmental performance and compliance with applicable environmental
obligations
The sustainability report should be communicated both internally and externally.
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Current status and recommendations
The UN organizations reports externally to stakeholders and donors about the finances and the result of their activities. As mentioned in the chapter before the UN
system and the UN organizations have already procedures in place for evaluating
and reporting their activities.
The UN organizations that have the role of working with environmental issues,
such as for example UNEP and UNDP, describe their environmental activities in
the annual report. Should this be requested by stakeholders and donors, the UN
organizations shall report also on the environmental sustainability issues. For example, the UN organizations should have environmental safeguards in place in
order to ensure that projects and programmes protect their interests. When relevant,
the gender issues that are connected with the environmental work should also be
reported.
UNEP (SUN) annually publishes a report on the CO2 emissions generated by most
UN organizations’. As mentioned before the World Bank reports on its sustainability performance annually through the GRI standard. UNOPS has a functioning GRI
programme and will release its first GRI report in early 201670. Otherwise, we
found no other United Nations organizations that have established external sustainability reports in the field of the environment according to the requirements of
EMAS or according to best practice.
70
Information from Nives Costa, UNOPS
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8
Environmental improvement
8.1
Nonconformity and corrective action
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall react to nonconformities in the EMS by taking immediate
action to control and correct it, and if needed, mitigate adverse environmental impacts. The organization shall also implement corrective action71, and evaluate the
need for action to eliminate the causes of the nonconformity, in order to prevent
that it recur or occur elsewhere. Finally, the organization shall review the effectiveness of the corrective actions taken and, if necessary to prevent further nonconformities, make changes to the EMS.
The definition of nonconformity in ISO 14001 is ‘nonfulfillment of a requirement’.
This is related to compliance obligations including legal obligations, internal policies, emergency procedures, environmental objectives, environmental procedures
and other EMS requirements, both from the ISO standard, and requirements established by and within the organization.
Current status and recommendations
The UN agencies implementing EMS should establish, implement and maintain
procedures for dealing with actual and potential nonconformity with its environmental obligations and for taking corrective action in the same way they deal with
nonconformity with other policies such as HR, gender policy, non-discrimination
etc. These actions would be in line with the One UN reform, which aims at moving
towards more transparent and accountable management. If the agency already has
procedures for the handling of nonconformities and corrective actions for another
area within the agency, such as quality, conformity with project procedures, economy etc. the most appropriate is to build the EMS procedure upon that.
The most common way to handle nonconformities within the UN-system seems to
be through the regular reporting way. If nonconformity is identified, it is reported
to the closest manager or manager in charge of the area in question.
Many organizations have internal ombudsman/grievance mechanisms, and internal
oversight/audit functions. These do not specifically address environment and some
may not be published externally.72
71
Definition of corrective action in ISO 14001: Action to eliminate the cause of a nonconformity and to
prevent recurrence.
72
Information from Georgina Stickels, WFP
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There are evaluations of individuals through performance appraisals, but apart
from JIU and OIOS reports, we have found no examples of system evaluations.
The UN organizations would benefit from more common procedures and continuous evaluations of their compliance and efficiency, i.e. how well the working procedures are functioning, rather than too much focus on individuals. Then nonconformities could lead to changes in procedures. For example, if staff members
repeatedly put litter in the wrong bin, the system for waste handling should be
evaluated and the corrective action could be to change the design of the litter bins.
Also external partners, such as suppliers and landlords, should be regularly monitored and assessed as to identify and correct possible nonconformities concerning
compliance with environmental requirements in contracts.
Ways of identifying nonconformity can be through reporting by staff and managers, a designated unit within the agency and internal or external environmental
audits. To date, our observation is that there are no internal environmental auditors
within the UN, except for, as we assume, in the UN agencies certified according to
ISO 14001. There are peer reviews but their main focus is on efficient and effective
environmental management of facilities and operations, not on non¬conformities.
For effectiveness auditing, there are two auditing bodies within the UN; The Joint
Inspection Unit (JIU) helping to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the
respective secretariats in achieving the legislative mandates and the mission objectives for the organizations, and the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)
helping UN agencies improving their performance. More information on this is
found in the Chapter 8.4 Internal audits, in this report.
Many UN organizations submit regularly a programme of work that outlines the
major objectives, activities, budgets and results expected from the organisation for
a 4-year cycle, while others have budgets that are only granted from one year to the
next.73 Periodically (every six months for instance), the work is followed up by
member states and possible changes and non-compliance are commented by the
UN organization.74
Results from the work with the ISO 14001-chapters “The organization and its context” and “Risks and opportunities” is also a help in the work of preventing nonconformities, since they are tools to map the contexts in which the organization
operates in and situations that may occur. If the situation is already identified in
“The organization and its context” or “Threats and opportunities”, the organization
can plan in advance to prevent nonconformities. An example could be the establishment of new operations in a geographical region with limited access the waste
73
74
Information from Georgina Stickels, WFP
www.unep.org/about/sgb/CommitteeofPermanentRepresentatives/tabid/129502/Default.aspx
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recycling. With proper planning, measures can be taken to avoid nonconformities
with the environmental policy including a pledge on waste recycling.
Nonconformity and corrective actions is also about organizational learning, which
includes the transfer of knowledge within the UN system. If the knowledge and
experience gained through nonconformities and corrective actions is spread to
other agencies, departments and offices, the EMS’s in the organizations improves
over time. Examples can be nonconformities that have been corrected concerning
waste management in an office and the experienced is transferred to another office,
or nonconformities in chemicals storing at a peace¬keeping operation and the lessons learned transferred to another peacekeeping operation. Thanks to the Sustainable UN facility, the Issue Management Group and other networks, organizational
learning can be facilitated.
To have a well functional organizational learning, there should be a tolerant and
encouraging culture, where found nonconformities are seen as opportunities to
improve. There also need to be well-functioning communication channels for the
exchange of experiences.
8.2
Continual improvement
Requirements according to ISO 14001
The organization shall continually improve their environmental management system to enhance environmental performance.
Continual improvement is considered in all parts of an EMS according to ISO
14001. In the PDCA-cycle, the continual improvement is part of “Act” since the
organization should “take actions to continually improve the environmental performance”, based on the experience gained in the previous three steps; Plan, Do
and Check.
Current status and recommendations
Since now the majority of all sectors of society are continually improving their
environmental performance, the UN organizations have to keep the same pace, or
preferably, take the lead. At Rio+20, UN Member States made expressed clearly
their wish to see the UN lead by example on sustainability management.
Today there are a number of networks and e-platforms within the UN where information on good examples and best practices can be shared so that the organizations
can learn from each other and improve their environmental performance. Examples
of networks are the Issue Management Group (IMG) on environmental sustainability management and the EMS working group therein, both supported by the Sus-
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tainable UN facility (SUN). It has recently been suggested in the EMS working
group that a register of successful initiatives concerning environmental sustainability for facilities and operations should be established and made available for the
focal points.
The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), in consultation with EU
Member States and other stakeholders, is currently developing Sectorial Reference
Documents (SRD) on Best Environmental Management Practice, whose objective
is to provide guidance to organizations and to facilitate the practical implementation of the requirements of EMAS. There will be one SRD for Public Administration, which could be used as a way for the UN agencies to learn from frontrunners.
Information on greenhouse emissions from individual UN organizations and actions to reduce the emissions can be found on the website greeningtheblue.org. It is
also possible to find case studies and good examples concerning other environmental issues on the website. There is also a UN internal share drive called UNITE
where the sustainability focal points can access more information on ongoing
greening activities in the UN.
Each UN organization should have a number of established channels where improvement suggestions can be conveyed and taken care of. That could be through
the existing reporting channels such as to the closest manager and regular reporting
to different levels within the organization. There can also be specific tools and
channels established for this specific purpose such as a “suggestions box” or encouragements to contact the EMS working group or the EMS coordinator.
Nonconformities and corrective actions are connected to continual improvement,
since that is a way of identifying areas of improvement of the environmental performance.
A way that UN organizations work with continual improvement is also through the
One UN initiative. The One UN reform can be described as an effort to improve
delivery of the UN’s mandates by doing more with existing resources and by
strengthening accountability. Since 2005 when the Secretary-General Kofi Annan
launched the Delivering as One initiative, the governments of 45 countries work
together with the UN organizations to explore ways to increase the UN system’s
impact through more coherent programmes, reduced transaction costs for governments, and lower overhead costs for the UN system. The second generation of
“Delivering as one” (post 2012) is focused on results, strengthened accountability,
monitoring and evaluation, and improved outcomes.75
75
https://undg.org/home/guidance-policies/delivering-as-one/
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Monitoring and evaluation is important to prove continual improvement. Therefore
the UN organizations need to measure progress within their EMS. The international
standard ISO 14031 gives guidance on the design and use of environmental performance evaluation within an organization. The evaluation is based on key performance indicators to compare the organization’s past and present environmental
performance with its environmental objectives. It can be used for all areas such as
the management of facilities, operations and programmes, to identify trends in
environmental performance, improve efficiency and effectiveness and as a basis for
sustainability reporting.76 When relevant for the environmental performance, key
performance indicators for gender issues should also be used.
The monitoring and evaluation of the EMS and its environmental performance is a
base for describing and communicating the UN organizations’ continual improvement (see also Chapter 6.2 Communication). Stakeholders and donors, but also the
UN staff, can have an interest in the information. The information can be communicated in a sustainability report according to EMAS (see also Chapter 8.4 Sustainability report).
76
ISO 14031:2013
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9
Resources and actions taken
concerning internal environmental
sustainability
9.1 Teams and networks for internal
environmental sustainability
The following teams and networks provide an existing infrastructure for the work
and communication related to environmental management systems within the UN:










UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB)
The High Level Committee on Management (HLCM)
The Environment Management Group (EMG)
Environmental and Social Sustainability Consultative Process
Sustainable UN (SUN)
Issue Management Group (IMG) on environmental sustainability management
The Environmental Management System Working Group (EMS WG)
The Inter-Agency Network of Facilities Managers (INFM)
The International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation (IAMLADP) and
The High-Level Committee on Management Procurement Network
(HLCM PN)
UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB)
The CEB is the longest-standing and highest-level coordination forum of the United Nations system. Chaired by the UN Secretary-General, the CEB meets twice a
year and comprises 29 Executive Heads of the United Nations and its Funds and
Programmes, the Specialized Agencies, including the Bretton Woods Institutions
(The World Bank and IMF), and related organizations - the WTO and the IAEA.
The CEB provides broad guidance, coordination and strategic direction for the
system as a whole in the areas under the responsibility of executive heads. Focus is
placed on inter-agency priorities and initiatives while ensuring that the independent
mandates of organizations are maintained. It carries out its role through three highlevel committees: High-Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP), High-Level
Committee on Management (HLCM) and the United Nations Development Group
(UNDG).77
77
http://www.unsceb.org/content/about
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The High Level Committee on Management (HLCM)
The HLCM promotes the harmonization of business practices across the UN system, including general management issues, to ensure management coherence from
global to country level.
The HLCM is charged with identifying and analysing administrative management
issues of common concern which require a system-wide response, and is authorized
to take decisions on behalf of the Executive Heads and to identify, promote and
coordinate management reforms that will improve services, achieve productivity
improvements and increase efficiency and effectiveness across the United Nations
System.78 The Committee is comprised of senior administrative managers from the
member organizations of the United Nations system and meets twice a year. Participation in the HLCM includes the management heads of the 14 specialized agencies, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Trade Organization and
the heads of the 12 United Nations funds and programmes.79
The Environment Management Group (EMG)
The Environment Management Group (EMG) is a senior level UN system-wide
coordination body on environment and human settlements, consisting of seniorlevel officials from member organizations of the Group. Senior Officials are usually the most senior staff of an organization responsible for environmental programmes. Participation at the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) is mainly at the
level of senior professionals (i.e. D1 and D2), and in some cases at the Assistant
Secretary General (ASG) level or heads of agency.80 Established in 2001, the EMG
identifies issues on the international environmental agenda that warrant cooperation, and finds ways of engaging its collective capacity in coherent management
responses to those issues. The EMG membership consists of specialized agencies,
programmes and organs of the UN including the secretariats of the Multilateral
Environmental Agreements (MEAs). The group is chaired by the Executive Director of UNEP.81
Issue Management Groups (IMGs) are time-bound groups established by the SOM
that bring together a sub-set of EMG Members interested in working on a specific
issue e.g. sound chemicals management. They usually have a Terms of Reference
(ToR) and a defined membership and produce a knowledge product or guidance for
78
https://undg.org/home/about-undg/governance-structures/chief-executives-board/high-levelcommittee-on-management/
79
80
81
http://www.unsceb.org/content/hlcm
Information collected through the EMG Secretariat
http://www.unemg.org/about-us
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endorsement by the SOM. IMGs normally exist at least for one year, but may have
extended mandates of several years.82
The SOM is preceded by a meeting of technical EMG focal points (the Technical
Segment) that prepare the decisions to be taken by the senior officials.
EMG is supported by a secretariat provided by UNEP, located in Geneva. The
secretariat currently has three full-time staff.
Consultative Process on Environmental and Social Sustainability in the UN
system
As a result of the 15th EMG Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) in September 2009,
the EMG was tasked to coordinate a consultative process and to prepare a report on
options for the development of a possible United Nations system-wide approach to
environmental and social sustainability. Environmental and Social Sustainability
(ESS) in this context, implies the adaption and integration of precautionary environmental and social principles and considerations into decision-making processes.
The objective of such safeguards is to prevent and mitigate undue harm to the environment and people at the earliest possible planning stage.
EMG Members, the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) and the HighLevel Committee on Management (HLCM) were consulted by the EMG and the
outcome of these consultations is a Framework for Advancing Environmental and
Social Sustainability in the United Nations System83. Members of the Consultative
Process convene when relevant or necessary (around 2-3 times a year). There are
roughly 40 involved parties, each with different areas of interest and focal points.84
The Sustainable United Nations facility (SUN)
SUN is a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative that coordinates, monitors and provides support to the UN and other organizations in measuring and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and improving their overall sustainability performance. SUN was established in 200885 in response to a request by
the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on World Environment Day 5 June 2007 to all
UN agencies, funds and programmes to reduce their carbon footprints and “go
green”.
Since 2008 the Sustainable UN facility (SUN) has produced “Moving towards a
Climate Neutral UN: annual report of UN GHG emissions” which describes the
82
83
84
85
Information collected through the EMG Secretariat
http://www.unemg.org/consultative-processes/environmental-and-social-sustainability
Information collected through the EMG Secretariat
Project document ”Sustainable UN facility Phase II”
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GHG emissions per staff member in each reporting UN agency and an analysis of
the UN’s performance in implementing the UN’s climate-neutral strategy.
An essential part of the work of SUN is to engage with staff across the UN and to
help them to reduce their individual footprints. For this reason, the “Greening the
Blue” campaign was created for UN staff and others with an interest in creating a
more sustainable UN86. The site provides tools, publications and downloadable
materials to help engage audiences in greening activities. This includes a tutorial
that highlights how each individual can contribute to the UN system improving its
environmental performance. Greening the Blue also presents green news and case
studies from around the UN System.87
The SUN facility is based in Geneva (three full time staff in June 2015) and coordinates staff and consultants in New York, London, Nairobi, Stockholm and Freiburg. However, although SUN primarily supports the UN system, it also offers
services to organizations outside the UN88.
Issue Management Group (IMG) on environmental sustainability
management
On 5 June 2007, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon publicly called on all UN
agencies, funds and programmes to ‘go green’ and become climate neutral. This
was echoed in October 2007 through a decision of the UN Chief Executives Board
for Coordination (CEB) to adopt the UN Climate Neutral Strategy, which commits
all UN organizations to move towards climate neutrality.89
To support these efforts, an Issue Management Group (IMG) on Environmental
Sustainability Management was created within the EMG. The IMG is made up of
designated focal points representing EMG members, tasked to implement the climate neutral strategy within their organization and to exchange experiences on the
matter.90 As part of their work the members of the IMG also exchange experience
on other sustainability issues such as EMS, waste management and sustainable
procurement, just to give a few examples. The IMG meets three times a year; two
online meetings and one “in real life meeting”.
The Environmental Management System Working Group (EMS WG)
This group was started in December 2013 and worked on developing the EMS
Milestones Framework, which summarizes the steps to implement an EMS. The
86
87
88
89
90
Draft SUN Wikipedia page found at: U:/EMG/Internal Secretariat/Intern succession/Follow up projects
www.greeningtheblue.org
SUN Wikipedia page found at: U:/EMG/Internal Secretariat/Intern succession/Follow up projects
http://www.unspecial.org/2012/11/greening-the-united-nations-with-sun/
http://www.unemg.org/issue-management-groups/environmental-management
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EMS Milestones Framework was finished in February 2014 and then the EMS
working group was put on hold, until the collaboration with Swedish EPA started.
The purpose of the group is now to share experience on EMS, inspire each other
and as a channel to share information. When the group was reborn at the end of
2014 there were 11 UN organizations represented in the group.
The Inter-Agency Network of Facilities Managers (INFM)
The INFM meets annually to discuss common issues within facilities management
and to inform policy-level decisions. Experiences and good practices from different
duty stations around the world are shared and there are specific technical working
groups to address new trends in facilities management. SUN currently leads the
sustainability working group.91
The network is composed of a UN system-wide collaborative team of professionals, with representatives from the United Nations, Regional Commissions, Funds
and Programmes, specialized agencies and the Bretton-Woods institutions.92
The International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements,
Documentation and (IAMLADP)
The IAMLADP was set up some thirty years ago by the United Nations, to allow
Heads of Language and Conference Services to meet once a year to identify and
discuss common problems, exchange experiences and come up with best practices.
It was originally for UN members only until 2001 when all the EU Language Services became full members.93 Within IAMLADP, SUN coordinates a task force on
sustainable meetings that has also published a Green Meeting Guide (2009) and a
Sustainable Events Guide (2012).
The High-Level Committee on Management Procurement Network
(HLCM PN)
The High Level Committee on Management’s Procurement Network (HLCM PN)
aims to promote the strategic importance of Procurement and Supply Chain Management in programme and service delivery in a transparent and accountable manner within the UN system. Sustainable Procurement is one of the thematic priorities
of the HLCM PN, implemented through its Working Group on Sustainable Procurement.94
91
http://www.unep.org/resourceefficiency/Home/Society/SustainableUN/ ReducingtheUNsImpact/
Buildings/tabid/101223/Default.aspx
92
93
94
https://www.unsceb.org/content/infm-homepage
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/scic/international-cooperation/dg-interpretation-iamladp/index_en.htm
http://www.greeningtheblue.org/sites/default/files/SUN%20SP%202-pager_e-version_12.11.12_0.pdf
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9.2 Actions taken concerning internal
environmental sustainability
The following describe actions taken concerning internal environmental sustainability within the UN.
Strategy for a Climate-Neutral UN
In 2007 the development of a strategy for making UN agencies, funds and programmes climate-neutral, was coordinated by the EMG Secretariat. The strategy
includes an overview of the basic steps that need to be taken, including in areas
where there is agreement on common approach and methodology. The approach
includes e.g. the following elements: a commitment to reducing greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions as part of an integrated and comprehensive environmental management approach, preparation of consistent, comparable and transparent inventory
data, implementation of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a decision
to offset the remaining emissions and regular transparent reporting.
In spring 2015, the members of CEB committed in line with the Climate Neutral
Strategy to reach climate neutrality by 2020 through a combination of emission
reduction initiatives and purchase of offsets, and adopted the UN roadmap towards
climate neutrality by 2020. They recognized that while carbon offsets are an important tool, focus should be placed on reducing the actual footprint of the UN
system. To achieve these system-wide goals, the CEB members agreed to integrate
the objective of “improved environmental sustainability of UN operations” in the
respective programming of facilities and operations, including designing organization-specific action plans.95
Each year progress towards reducing the UN’s GHG emissions is published by
SUN in a report entitled Moving Towards a Climate Neutral UN. In December
2015, 21 UN organizations were climate neutral for their 2014 emissions, and one
more for their headquarters’ emissions only. In total this represents 32% of the UN
system’s total reported GHG emissions for 2014.96
Emission reduction measures
In February 2014, a report named “The status and funding of emission reduction
measures in the UN system” was completed by SUN. In the report it is advised to
read the results as representative for the organizations that responded only and
refrain from making assumptions for the entire UN system. It is assumed that the
unresponsive agencies are not performing as well with regards to their emissions
reduction efforts as the responsive agencies. This is based on two experiences:
95
96
CEB/2015/3
Moving towards a Climate Neutral United Nations (2015)
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Firstly, based on the experience gained in working on the UN GHG emissions
inventory it was found that unresponsive Focal Points were mainly doing so because they had nothing to report. Secondly, on a more general experience from the
case studies it was found that organisations that have ongoing efforts usually do not
shy away from communicating internally the achievements.
The report was based on a questionnaire that was sent to focal points that are active
members of the IMG. The questionnaire showed that 20 of the 26 responding organizations had an emission reduction strategy to reduce their GHG emissions, and
the remaining 6 were planning on working directly towards the implementation of
an EMS. There were 11 organizations that had management approval of the ERS.
The organizations that implemented measures were focusing on the areas of facilities, operations and travel. On the facilities side, organizations tend to invest in
refurbishment measures and energy efficiency measures with short payback periods such as replacing lighting fixtures. On the operations side, organizations tend
to concentrate on paperless initiatives, green meetings and conferences and waste
management initiatives. On the travel side, organizations are having a lot more
difficulty in identifying, defining and implementing suitable measures. Especially,
the reduction or replacement of air travel, or measures looking to reduce the emissions through air travel (such as economy versus business class) seem to meet resistance from staff as well as management, with the UN rules and regulations also
posing a barrier to change.97
The Business Case for Environmental Management Systems in the United
Nations
Calculations in the Business Case for Environmental Management Systems in the
United Nations indicate that systematic measurement and management of environmental impacts through an EMS could help the UN system as a whole to
achieve reductions in operating costs of around 300 million USD per year through
improved management of electricity and other utilities, fuel, travel and some office-related procurement, which collectively cost the UN an estimated 2.7 billion
USD in 2010.98
A Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the United Nations
System99
To achieve the emissions reductions demanded by the UN Climate Neutral Strategy, the EMG at its meeting in September 2010 advised its members to take a systematic approach. A proposal for a strategic plan was therefore developed by the
Issue Management Group (IMG) on environmental sustainability management,
supported by the SUN, and approved in September 2011 by the EMG.
97
98
99
The status and funding of emission reduction measures in the UN system (2014)
The Business Case for Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations (2013)
Strategic Plan for Sustainability Management in the United Nations System (2011)
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The plan provides a step-by-step approach to the implementation of sustainability
management. The vision for the strategic plan for sustainability management is the
same as for the Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability
in the UN System, i.e. “the environmental and social sustainability of the United
Nations is enhanced, thereby contributing to its mission to promote and protect
human well-being in line with internationally agreed declarations, conventions,
standards and covenants”. The objective of the strategic plan is to provide a model
for how the UN system can move towards realizing the vision with regards to its
in-house operations and practices, and with a primary focus on environmental sustainability. The intended output of the strategic plan is that each UN organization
has a Sustainability Management System (SMS) to manage its sustainability impact. The SMS would allow the organization to identify, address and report on the
key environmental sustainability impacts from in-house operations (facilities, travel, communication, procurement, meetings etc.).
By April 2013, the HLCM and the CEB had “Committed to the development and
implementation of environmental sustainability management systems in each organization, through a gradual, voluntary and flexible process as described in the
‘Strategic plan for environmental sustainability management in the UN system’,
focusing on low-investment and high-return initiatives, and through mainstreaming
of EMS in the programming and planning processes and increased coordination on
this subject among the relevant HLCM networks.”
Environmental Management System Milestones Framework for the UN
system
Reflecting the IMG experience and also the voluntary nature of the commitment to
environmental sustainability management systems, the IMG agreed that “measurable progress to enhance environmental sustainability of UN operations” should be
expressed in terms of progress against a series of agreed milestones, rather than
specific reduction commitments that seem premature given the current lack of a
clear and harmonized measurement system. The IMG together with SUN therefore
developed an Environmental Management System Milestones Framework in 2014
to give hands-on advice on how to implement an EMS in the UN system. The
framework is based on the fundamental steps of ISO 14001: plan, do, check and
act. Each milestone presents the roles that need to be established, checklists and
examples. The material is available on UNITE and in Word-format for all interested UN organizations.
Survey “Level of implementation of the EMS Milestones Framework” spring
2015
In April 2015, a survey was sent by SUN to 19 UN organizations - the members of
the Environmental Management Systems Working Group and to UN organizations
interested in becoming EMS pilots. Out of these, 17 organizations responded. Just
as for the survey result in 2014 about emission reduction measures in the UN sys-
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tem, it is advised to read the results as representative for the organizations that
responded only and refrain from making assumptions for the entire UN system.
These 17 organizations are all among the most advanced and interested in EMS
implementation in the UN system. An example of that is that out of the 17 responding organizations, nearly all (90%) have started their journey towards an environmental management system (EMS), even if the level of implementation varies.
The responding organizations were fairly well advanced in the Prepare- and Planphases, while only a few of them have started working with the phases Do, Check
and Act. The step that most organizations have taken (70%) in general, is appointing a coordinator/EMS focal point. Among the respondents, 30% state that they
have obtained executive level commitment to conduct an EMS. The organizations’
results were classified based on their progress into gold, silver and bronze medals.
UNFIL reached gold level, FAO and UNEP reached silver level, The World Bank,
MINUSTAH and MONUSCO plus three organizations that prefer to stay anonymous reached bronze level, and eight organizations did not reach medal level.100
UN entities with EMS certified according to ISO 14001 or with well advanced
EMSs
Within the UN, the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo, the print shops in
UNON (Nairobi) and in UNOG (Geneva) are certified according to the international environmental management system standard ISO 14001. Also UNOPS’ infrastructure systems and infra-structure projects in six country offices (Copenhagen,
Pristina, Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Guatemala) are certified according to
ISO 14001. Further roll out within UNOPS is planned for 2016, including expansion of the EMS to both operations and projects.101
Examples of other organizations which are well advanced in their EMS work are
FAO in Rome, UNIFIL and UNEP.
As part of the UNEP – Swedish EPA collaboration, there will be four EMS pilot
organizations, implementing EMS over the course of two coming years. The selected organizations are the UN Secretariat at headquarters in New York, ESCAP
in Bangkok, MONUSCO in Goma and WFP in Nairobi.
A Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability (ESS)
in the United Nations System
In 2012, a report was produced that responded to the request made by the Senior
Officials of the Environment Management Group (EMG) at their meeting in September 2009, to undertake a consultative process and prepare a report that explored
options for a common UN System approach for “environmental and social safe100
101
Report “Survey results – level of implementation of the EMS milestones framework” (2015)
Information from Nives Costa, UNOPS
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guards” now referred to as “an environmental and social sustainability framework”.
The ESS Framework provides a basic architecture for integrating sustainability
principles into UN policies, programming and operations in a systematic and coherent manner. The five building blocks for the integration are corporate commitment, performance/quality standards, operational procedures, mechanisms for ensuring accountability and transparency, and monitoring, reporting and evaluation
systems.
The vision of the Framework is that “the environmental and social sustainability of
the United Nations is enhanced, thereby contributing to its mission to promote and
protect human well-being in line with internationally agreed declarations, conventions, standards and covenants”. One of the main objectives of the Framework is to
encourage UN organizations to commit to internalizing the principles they stand
for by integrating environmental and social sustainability measures across the following three entry points:



policy/strategy,
programmes/projects, and
facilities/operations.
It is recommended that a sustainability management system (of which an EMS can
be a part) is established to work with the facilities/operations entry. In 2014, an
Interim Guide for the implementation of the Framework was produced and during
2015 seven pilot organizations will test the usability of the Interim Guide in assessing the extent to which the organizations have the minimum building blocks in
place that are necessary to support the implementation of ESS measures as defined
in the Framework.102
Greening the Blue Helmets
In 2012, a report about environment, natural resources and UN peacekeeping operations was developed. A peacekeeping operation consists of military, police and
civilian personnel, who work to deliver security, political and early peacebuilding
support. The report concluded that there are in general four main ways that peacekeeping operations affect and are affected by natural resources and environmental
conditions.
First, the size of peacekeeping operations (around 120,000 personnel in 2011) and
their supporting infrastructure places considerable demands on the local environment. Peacekeeping operations alone contribute to over half of the UN system’s
total climate footprint. Second, natural resources are often involved in achieving
key peace and security services. Among other things, this includes employment of
102
A Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United Nations System
(2012)
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former combatants. Third, peacekeeping operations in some countries are affected
by political and social challenges regarding the basic governance of natural resources and the environment. Finally, in a number of countries affected by conflict,
peacekeeping missions are also confronted with illegal and predatory natural resource exploitation that has contributed to the loss of sovereign control over the
resources, undermined economic and social development, enabled corruption and
helped sustain armed violence.
With the aim of avoiding and minimizing the environmental impacts of peacekeeping missions, DPKO and DFS adopted an Environmental Policy for UN Field Missions for the first time in 2009. Today, a number of peacekeeping operations have
started to implement environmental management systems.103
Cleaner Fleet Management
UNEP in association with TNT and Partnership for clean fleets and vehicles has
developed a toolkit to help organizations assess the environmental impact of their
vehicles and provide concrete solutions to reduce the environment and health impacts. The toolkit is provided on a CD-ROM and contains a step by step action plan
to develop a clean fleet strategy and accompanying tools. Among others, it has
been used by UNIFIL which has reached reductions in both environmental impact
and in fuel costs.
UN System Wide Strategy(ies) on the Environment
Over the past four decades, environmental activities have become an increasingly
integral component of the work of the wider UN system, reflecting both the intrinsic links of environmental matters to a broad range of issues, as well as the growing
importance attributed to the environment by various governing bodies across the
system. These activities range from providing policy support and capacity building
to Member States, to integrating environmental sustainability into their own operations.
The increased focus on environmental issues in the UN system is a significant
achievement and represents an important source of competence and capacity, but it
also represents a governance challenge. Strategic approaches on the environment
have been developed in many agencies as part of their overall strategic and programmatic frameworks. However, there is a need to further strengthen consistency
across the system, in order to ensure the coherence of policy frameworks and of the
delivery of UN system services to countries, with a view to strengthening their
national capacities in an effective manner.
Against this background, the development of an UN System Wide Strategy(ies) on
the Environment was proposed and supported by Member States and the United
103
”Greening the Blue Helmets – Executive Summary” (2012)
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Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) of UNEP in June 2014. The UN System
Wide Strategy(ies) is intended to ensure the coherence of relevant policies and the
effective coordination of the diverse services, activities and programmes provided
by the UN system in the field of the environment.104
104
UN System Wide Strategy on Environment, http://www.unemg.org/task-teams/un-system-widestrategy, 2015-05-07 and information from the EMG Secretariat June 2015
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10 The selection process for
EMS pilots
One of the key activities in the collaboration project is to pilot the implementation
of EMS in a number of strategically selected UN offices.
Selection process
UN organizations member of the Issue Management Group on Environmental Sustainability Management (IMG) have been invited to register their interest in becoming an EMS pilot to the SUN team on behalf of one or more of their offices in
diverse locations.
Information about the possibility to register interest and about the meaning of being
a pilot has been conveyed in several occasions: the face to face IMG meeting in
Bonn October 2014, the IMG EMS working group meeting in January 2015, the
online IMG meeting in February and in the IMG bulletin in March. In addition,
UNEP regional offices have also been invited in March to use their connections to
invite Regional Commissions or UN country offices in their respective regions to
candidate.
As a result, eight candidate offices/locations expressed interest to become a pilot.
UNEP SUN and the Swedish EPA had several discussions and conference calls
with the candidates to present the project and –later on- ascertain the candidates’
correspondence to the selection criteria.
The selection of pilots was based on the following criteria:





High level commitment, i.e. support from the senior management to introduce an EMS
Significant environmental impact
Symbolic value
Gender dimensions
Balance between headquarters and field activities, including geographic
spread
The selected pilots were those responding the best to these criteria.
Decision 30 April 2015
The offices selected to be EMS pilots are:


UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
in Bangkok
UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO)
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

UN Secretariat in New York
World Food Program (WFP) in Nairobi
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Conclusions
The stocktaking exercise has given a snapshot of the UN system’s fulfilment of
EMS requirements under accepted international standards. The good examples
found can be used for benchmarking by the Swedish EPA experts in the support to
the EMS pilots. The recommendations described in the report will impact the prioritization of guidance to the EMS pilots in certain areas. The stocktaking exercise
has provided an overview of the existing high level mandates in place to support
the implementation of EMS. These will be used in the work with the EMS pilots, in
the EMS monitoring, and in other activities in the SUN – Swedish EPA collaboration. The stocktaking exercise also outlines the networks and bodies fostering internal environmental sustainability within the UN, and guidance material for EMS
implementation. The existing networks are important collaboration partners and
communications channels and will therefore be part of the implementation of EMS.
Material produced in the SUN – Swedish EPA collaboration with the purpose of
supporting the UN organizations, will consider and build on existing EMS guidance material. Finally, the report will function as a baseline to measure progress
against. The information collected in the stocktaking exercise will be available for
the funder of the collaboration.
The main conclusions from the stocktaking exercise presented below are organized
around a SWOT-analysis, and a summarizing figure can be found in Appendix 6.
The current processes of implementing environmental management systems (EMS)
in UN organizations have both strengths and weaknesses. There are many opportunities connected to implementing EMS in the UN system, and there are also threats
against a smooth implementation. Recommendations connected to the different
parts of the SWOT-analysis are presented in each chapter of the report.
Strengths
The components of environmental management systems that are already in place
within the UN system are considered as being strengths, since they will constitute a
basis to build upon when implementing complete environmental managements
systems. An obvious strength are some of the UN organizations whose entire role
and mandates include environmental issues, and which drive sustainability issues on the global agenda. A few examples are UNEP, UNFCCC and UNDP,
which can use their expertise to support colleagues in other UN organizations.
One of the first steps when implementing an EMS is to identify those stakeholders
interested in the organization’s EMS and establish a way to review their needs and
expectations. It is clear that the UN organizations have an understanding of
which of their various stakeholders are interested in how they manage their operations and activities, e.g. Member States and donors, and also of their expectations.
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There are well established pathways for cooperation and interaction between
UN system organizations and their stakeholders.
The scope of an organization’s EMS should clarify the geographical, functional
and organizational boundaries. In the Environmental and Social Sustainability
Framework in the United Nations System (the ESS Framework) the scope is
defined, and covers the entry points policy/strategy level, programme/project
level and facilities/operations level. The UN organizations that choose to implement the ESS Framework should have EMSs that include all three entry points in
their scope.
A very important part of an EMS is the demonstration of leadership and commitment to the EMS and its purpose to improve environmental performance. There are
several demands both internally and from member states that provide a justification
for UN organizations to work with environmental sustainability. These demands
are listed in Appendix 2. A clear strength that has been observed is the unanimous
and unequivocal messaging in favour of a more rational use of environmental
and financial resources, both in internal management and in programming
that stems from the highest management in the system such as the Chief Executive Board and the Environment Management Group.
To facilitate effective environmental management, there needs to be clear organizational roles and responsibilities. A great asset for the UN system is the Sustainable
UN facility, which has the role of supporting the UN system to become climate
neutral and more environmentally sustainable. Also the existing internal infrastructure for exchange of best practice on interagency level is a strength. An
example is the IMG on environmental sustainability management.
As part of establishing roles and responsibilities, several UN organizations have
now appointed a sustainability focal point. Other functions with the potential to
affect the organization’s environmental performance, such as ICT and procurement, need to have relevant expertise, so they can contribute to the EMS.
On their websites and annual reports, the UN organizations describe well the result of their activities and the environmental efforts that they have been mandated to carry out. The strength that the UN system has in communication can be
applied to reach different target groups within the EMS. One existing example is
the UNEP campaign “Greening the Blue” which is a web portal to increase
awareness of environmental issues within the UN system.
It is a strength that most UN organizations have an emergency management system in place, which facilitates the introduction of procedures for environmental
emergency preparedness and response. The Secretariat at headquarters is implementing an Organizational Resilience Management System which is a management
system that an EMS should be integrated with.
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Monitoring and evaluation is part of the Check-phase in the PDCA cycle, and is
used to evaluate the environmental performance and effectiveness of the EMS. For
the imple-mentation of EMS in the UN organizations it is an advantage that the
HLCM has concluded that sustainability indicators for greenhouse gases, fresh
water use, waste and training on environmental sustainability will be compulsory
for all UN organizations to report on. Since 2008, GHG emissions from UN organizations have been followed up annually by SUN.
It is a strength that the UN organizations have procedures in place for evaluating
and reporting their activities to senior management, which can be used for
management review of the EMS.
Two core elements of an EMS are a coherent way of working and the continual
improvement. Some UN organizations already work this way through the One UN
initiative, which purpose is more coherent programmes and better coordination
by focusing on e.g. monitoring and improved outcomes.
Environmental management systems certified according to the international standard ISO 14001 are found in a limited number of entities within the UN, see
Chapter 9.2. These UN organizations can act as role models and contribute with
good examples for successors.
Weaknesses
The areas where one or more steps for a full environmental management system
are not yet implemented are identified as weaknesses.
The senior management in the UN organizations could strengthen the leadership on
environ-mental sustainability by adopting an environmental policy and establishing
internal environmental objectives. It is a weakness that only a few UN organizations have environmental policies in place.
Experience has shown that it is important to have clearly defined responsibilities
with regard to the EMS to ensure successful implementation. Roles and responsibilities for environ-mental management are not mentioned in existing documents and should therefore be integrated in the management structure. In addition
to EMS focal points, also other key roles in the EMS such as administrators and
communicators need to have clearly defined responsibilities.
Few UN organizations have made a baseline review or an initial environmental
review, which is the basis for setting up an environmental management system.
Also few measurable internal environmental objectives have been observed. It
is a shortcoming that environmental objectives are not part of the establishment of
the Programme of work, and that environmental objectives and performance are
not part of “Senior Manager’s Compact”.
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Today, resources for implementing and maintaining EMS are often not included
in the UN organization’s budget. The allocation of resources, and especially
human resources, for the EMS should be an integrated part of the ordinary budget
process.
The UN organizations that will implement EMS will need to put in place procedures to monitor, measure and evaluate its EMS and environmental performance in a systematic way according to indicators. A few procedures, such as the
GHG reporting that each UN organization makes annually to SUN, exist already
today. The evaluation of legal compliance and other requirements should also be
integrated in procedures. In addition there are few procedures in place for environmental audits and as a result very few UN organizations have carried out one.
The UN organizations need to better follow up their environmental efforts, at
various management levels. The senior management should establish procedures
for reviewing the environmental initiatives taken, and procedures for taking action
for continual improvement of the environmental performance.
There is no information on the UN organizations' websites about their internal
environmental work with facilities and operations. Except from the Moving towards climate neutral UN report for the whole system, or the agency specific
World Bank GRI report, and FAO with its Corporate Report on Environmental
Sustainability, no other UN organizations appear to report internally or externally on its environmental performance according to best practice. The sustainability reporting could be integrated as a part of the existing annual programme performance reports. To demonstrate accountability and transparency, reporting the
environmental performance is an important part of an EMS.
The UN system also lack procedures concerning nonconformities for environmental sustainability. If the UN organizations already has procedures, e.g. for
non-conformity with project procedures, the most appropriate is to build the EMS
procedure upon that.
Opportunities
EMS in UN organizations will open up for many opportunities. Below are the opportunities that were identified during this stocktaking exercise.
Implementing EMS gives an opportunity for the UN organizations to demonstrate
that they have relevant policies and systems in place to satisfy the environmental
requirements from stakeholders. UN member states clearly stated in the QCPR
resolution from the General Assembly that the UN system as a whole is expected
walk the talk sustainability. Environmental requirements are becoming a precondition for donors such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) or several other
donors.
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The General Assembly has endorsed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
which will function as a common base for the work of all UN organizations on
sustainable development and there is an opportunity to use EMS as a tool when
working towards many of the SDGs. Examples are goal number 12 “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns” and number 13 “Take urgent action
to combat climate change and its impacts”, where the UN organizations not only
should contribute through their normative roles in international agreements, but
also need to do their share in the internal management of facilities and operations.
The ESS Framework provides a model for the systematic implementation of a
sustainability management system, and gives an opportunity to bring management of in-house and programmatic issues closer together. EMS in UN organizations represents an opportunity to mainstream environmental consideration in
policies/strategies and projects/ programmes. The UN is already playing an
important normative role in the establishment of international agreements on the
environment and an EMS could enhance the environmental integration into a larger
number of international agreements.
The best way to implement an EMS is to integrate it in existing management
frameworks, and in the organizational strategies, procedures and governance. Many
UN organizations organize their delivery around a Programme of work that outlines the activities for a 4-year period, including objectives, deliverables, modalities of work, responsibilities and budgets. Such Programmes of work are the best
place where environmental objectives can be inserted.
The UN often operates in poor countries with limited resources and fragile nature
and also the sheer size of the UN organization causes a considerable environmental
impact. The systematic approach of an EMS gives an opportunity to achieve better
planning and control of facilities and operation’s environmental impact. An
EMS can also show the systematic approach to environmental management to
partner organizations, the host countries etc. Establishing an EMS in larger UN
compounds is an opportunity of strengthening inter-agency relationships and
collaboration on cross-cutting issues such as environmental sustainability and
could contribute to the UN delivering as One.
Establishing an EMS often leads to financial savings, for example by reduced
energy consumption and reduced amounts of waste.
Through the adoption of sustainability considerations in purchasing decisions, the
UN organizations have an opportunity to have a significant impact on a green
economy. The effect of UN procurement decisions is very far-reaching because of
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the value of the goods and services that the UN purchases and the majority come
from developing countries105.
Implementing EMS within the UN organizations gives an opportunity to contribute to the One UN initiative to work more coherent and efficient.
UN agencies are not obliged to comply with environmental laws and regulations.
As part of an EMS, the organization must be aware of environmental laws and
comply with them. This is an opportunity for goodwill for the UN organizations,
and also an opportunity to minimize the risk of environmental scandals as a
result of overstepping compliance obligations in the area of environment.
Last but not least, by contributing to environmental sustainability, the UN organizations have an opportunity to contribute to their own missions, i.e. to keep peace
throughout the world and to improve the lives of poor people, seen in the very long
run. Peacekeeping operations containing conflicts over natural resources are becoming more frequent and the number of environmental refugees worldwide is
expected to swell, largely as a result of climate change.
Threats
A threat to the implementation of EMS, can be that resources to environmental
sustainability seldom are given priority compared to other urgent and more visible areas of work. It does not need to be any contradiction between interests, instead they can enhance each other; inte¬grating environ¬mental consideration into
e.g. peacekeeping can improve resource efficiency.
Given that the UN consists of many Member States and is driven by a political
process, decision-making takes a long time. A threat in this could be the long
time periods that may be expected before any internal environmental initiatives can
be carried out. There are a number of constraints under which the UN operates,
particularly the many stakeholders with varied interests, which could make it difficult to establish environmental measures.
Some buildings or parts of an office space are leased by the UN and unless environmental consideration is part of the agreements with the landlords, the lack of
control can be a threat to the implementation of EMS in facilities.
Although there are threats against the process of implementing EMS in UN organizations, failure in introducing environmental sustainability in all parts of the UN’s
work, can pose an even bigger threat to the credibility of the UN and, of course, to
the environment.
105
2014 UNOPS Annual statistical report on procurement
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Recommendations
The main recommendations to create the proper institutional conditions to implement an EMS are described below. They are described according to best practice
with the purpose to limit the environmental impact, speed up the implementation of
EMS and to reduce the costs for the implementing organizations. Each recommendation must be undertaken within a context of respect for the institutional obligations arising from other policies. This may form the approach to internalising sustainable development principles in UN corporate management, such as policies on
gender and indigenous peoples.
The recommendations are not given in a specific order of priority since they are
connected to each other. Literature, discussions with members if the EMS working
group, and the earlier experience of the Swedish EPA experts, confirms that the
leadership, the involvement of staff and the integration of the EMS in the existing
management structure, is crucial for a successful EMS implementation in the UN.
Certain core functions should be managed on a common UN-wide basis, to streamline and coordinate efforts, and to avoid duplication of efforts and costs. This
brings advantages such as economies of scale and a coherent way of working with
sustainability issues in the spirit of the One UN reform. According to best practice,
the UN system is recommended to adopt the following activities, through a permanent central coordination:






Develop the existing central support to the UN organizations in their work
with implementing EMS into their management structure in a coherent
way.
Identify how the Sustainability development goals, and standards for best
practise on social responsibility, could be a tool and the next step for the
UN organizations for working in a systematic manner with both environmental and social issues.
Make sure that competence in environmental law is available to support
UN organizations.
Provide coherent and common UN guidelines and voluntary templates for
e.g. initial environmental review, and for developing internal environmental objectives.
Develop EMS indicators that the UN organizations should report on centrally and to their governing body, and accelerate the work with the four
endorsed sustainability indicators (GHG gases, water use, waste management and environmental training).
Coordinate internal environmental audits between the UN organizations,
by supporting the auditors with regard to training and sharing experience.
The internal auditors could also audit each other's organizations.
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

Consider how the EMS support may be extended from environmental aspects in operation and facilities, to environmental aspects in policymaking,
programming and projects.
Develop how the gender perspective could be integrated in the logical
structure for an EMS based on the PDCA-cycle (Plan, Do, Check and Act).
Through the work of SUN and the IMG on Environmental Sustainability, many of
the above mentioned steps are already underway.
According to best practice, each UN organization is recommended to adopt the
following activities:











106
Conduct a SWOT106 - or PESTLE107 -analysis, to reach a better understanding of the factors that impact the EMS and the environmental context
in which the organization operates.
Make sure that the allocation of resources, not least human resources, for
the EMS is an integrated part of the ordinary budget process already in
place.
Show how the demands from relevant stakeholders have been internalized
into the organization’s own policy, strategic documents and at the operational level.
Include environmental objectives and environmental performance
measures in the “Senior Manager’s Compact”.
Make the support from senior management visible, by sponsoring an initial
environmental review, adopting an environmental policy, ensuring organization-wide communication of the environmental work and endorsing internal environmental objectives.
Integrate both environmental objectives and action plans in existing strategic documents and activity plans.
Improve the monitoring and management of significant environmental aspects.
Complement possible emergency management systems already in place,
with procedures for environmental consideration.
Integrate environmental risks and opportunities considerations in existing
risk management, and evaluate possible changes in the EMS, such as a revised list of significant environmental aspects.
Ensure appropriate competencies to be able to conduct regular evaluations
of adherence to environmental compliance obligations.
Conducting regular environmental audits and environmental management
reviews,
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
107
PESTLE analysis can be used to examine the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal pressures for environmental protection.
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



Include sustainability considerations in purchasing and procurement, which
can have an impact on the enabling of a green economy.
Develop the work to continuously identify nonconformities and taking corrective action, and integrate it in the existing handling of nonconformities
for other areas, such as quality, conformity with project procedures etc.
Describe the result of the monitoring and evaluation of the environmental
performance in an annual sustainability report, used for communication
with donors, UN staff, and other stakeholders that have an interest in the
information, to ensure the mechanism for accountability and transparency
within the UN.
Have a tolerant and encouraging culture, where found nonconformities are
seen as opportunities to improve, and have well-functioning communication channels for the exchange of experiences, all to accomplish continual
improvement.
In 2018, at the end of the SUN – Swedish EPA collaboration, the Swedish EPA
experts will carry out an analysis of results of the collaboration and develop a final
project report. The report will include lessons learned and recommendations for
ongoing EMS measures, based on the experience gained in the time of the project,
the EMS pilots and on input from SUN and its network. Comparisons will then be
made with the Stocktaking exercise report.
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Appendix 1: Examples of environmental aspects and environmental
impact
Requirements according to ISO 14001
An environmental aspect is a component of an organization's activities that interacts or can interact with the environment. Changes to the environment that result
from environmental aspects are called environmental impacts. The environmental
impact may occur at local, regional and global scales, be direct or indirect and may
be undesirable or beneficial. The organization shall identify the environmental
aspects and associated environmental impacts of its activities that it can control and
those that it can influence. Also planned changes and potential emergency situation
should be taken into account.
Environmental impact from polices, programming and project
Several UN organizations are working with environmental issues in the context of
their mandate and therefore have an indirect impact on the environment. The UN
organizations have an indirect environmental impact by establishing conventions
and treaties and through mainstreaming environmental issues into Policies/strategies, and Projects/programmes. In the UN system different kinds of organizations have an environmental component in their mandate (see Appendix 2).
As an example UNEP describes in the annual report for 2012 that they are working
with providing a bridge between emerging sciences on a wide range of environmental issues and strong polices that will support sustainable development. UNEP
also works to develop strong environmental governance that is essential to address
the environmental challenge with different partners as member states, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and the private sector.
In 2014, the member states met at the United Nations Environment Assembly
(UNEA). The overarching theme was Sustainable Development Goals and the Post
2015 Development Agenda. These new goals have the purpose of minimizing the
social and environmental impact in the member states and could also be a common
base for the UN organizations to develop measures with the purpose of contributing to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Framework Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the United
Nations system was adopted in 2012, prepared by the members of the UN Environment Management Group (EMG).
An Interim Guide on this Framework was drafted by the EMG as a basic tool to
help the UN organizations to start implementing the Framework. The Guide is
based on the UN organizations’ current practices for incorporating, implementing
and reporting on sustainability measures.
98
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
During 2015 this is being piloted in 8 agencies across the UN system. Preliminary
results of the pilots will be presented to the senior officials in September 2015.
The standard ISO 2600 for social responsibility could be a tool for systematically
mainstreaming sustainability measures in the UN organizations activities and
measuring both the organizations positive environmental and social performance
and impact. The ISO 14001 standard could also be, with its systematic approach,
helpful in understanding how sustainability issues could be integrated in the organizations management system.
Environmental impact in facilities and operations
The sheer size of the UN organization causes a considerable environmental impact
from facilities and operations. Activities included in “operations” are HR, office
operations, meetings and bigger conferences, travels and procurement. In 2013 the
total number of UN staff was approximately 230 000108 whereof the peacekeeping
operations constituted around half109.
The greenhouse gas emissions from facilities and travels was around 1 720 000
tCO2eq year 2013 for the UN system.110 Central follow-up by SUN of the fractions
and amounts of waste generated in the UN agencies will start in 2016 and central
follow-up by SUN of fresh water use in the UN agencies will start in 2017.111
Below follows an overview of environmental impact caused by management of
facilities and operations:
Activity
Environmental aspect
Use of energy for electric- Use of energy
ity and heating in facilities
108
109
110
111
Moving towards a Climate Neutral United Nations (2014)
Greening the Blue helmets (2012)
Moving towards a Climate Neutral United Nations (2014)
HLCM meeting, March 2015
99
Environmental impact
Energy derived from the
burning of fossil fuels directly (in heaters or generators)
or indirectly (buying electricity made from burning coal,
gas etc.) contribute to the
greenhouse effect, to the
acidification of the ground
and water and to lower air
quality.
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
Purchase of office materi- Use of raw material and These purchases contribute
al, IT-equipment, furni- natural resources
to the use of both renewable
ture, use of fuel etc.
and non-renewable resources
Plane travels
Emissions to air
The exhaust emissions contribute to the greenhouse
Use of vehicles such as
effect, to the
cars and trucks which
acidification of the ground
generates exhaust emisand water and to lower air
sions
quality
Generation of wastewater Releases to water
Wastewater, surface runoff
from toilets, cleaning and
and extinguishing water may
catering
contribute to eutrophication
of lakes and can also contain
Surface
runoff
from
toxic substances that contribpremises
ute to the pollution of oceans
Extinguishing water in
and lakes
case of fire
Renovation of buildings
Releases to land
The waste from renovations
may go to landfill
Generation
of
office Generation of waste
Waste generation contributes
waste such as printing
to the use of resources, it
paper
may contribute to contamination of land and when burned
Generation of electrical
it may contribute to emiswaste such as computers
sions to air (see above)
and mobile phones
End of life disposal of
furniture
Generation of waste from
catering such as food and
packaging
Generation of hazardous
waste such as chemicals
used for cleaning
The use of energy effi- Environmental aspects An ambitious internal environmental work with facilicient buildings, recycled of beneficial impact
ties and operations may enmaterials, as well as procourage to the same within
visions for recycling,
other parts of the UN and
virtual meetings and conalso other organizations. This
ferences, paperless meetin turn may reduce overall
ings and other internal
negative environmental imenvironmental
features
pact also in other places.
and practices
100
CEB
Who?
UN
General
Moon
October 2007
When?
Secretary- 5 June 2007
Ban Ki-
101
What?
Where?
The SG publically called for the UN system to become Secretary-General's message on World Environclimate neutral and more sustainable:
ment Day
“I would like to make a public commitment, as the Organization’s direct contribution to global efforts to safeguard our planet and climate… I would like to see our
renovated Headquarters complex eventually become a
globally acclaimed model of efficient use of energy and
resources. Beyond New York, the initiative should include the other UN headquarters and offices around the
globe. We need to work on our operations, too, by using
energy more efficiently and eliminating wasteful practices. That is why, today, I am asking the heads of all
UN agencies, funds and programmes to join me in this
effort. And I am asking all staff members throughout
the UN family to make common cause with me.”
“We, the Heads of the UN agencies, funds and pro- CEB statement
grammes, hereby commit ourselves to moving our respective organizations towards climate neutrality in our
headquarters and United Nations centres for our facility
operations and travel.”
Appendix 2: Internal commitments and guidelines on environmental sustainability
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
http://www.greeni
ngtheblue.org/ourapproach/introduction/p
olicy-
Web link
http://www.un.org
/press/en/2007/sgs
m11028.doc.htm
102
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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documents/cebstatement
in “We call on the United Nations system to improve the
management of facilities and operations, by taking into
account sustainable development practices, building on
existing efforts and promoting cost effectiveness, and in
Endorsements
of the outcome accordance with legislative frameworks, including fidocuments in nancial rules and regulations, while maintaining accountability to Member States.”
December
Rio +20
June 2012
General Assembly
103
The adoption of the Framework for Advancing Environmental and Social Sustainability in the UN system,
providing preliminary guidance on the integration of
sustainable development considerations into policies,
programmes and facilities/operations.
September
2011
CEB
Meeting minutes from
CEB meeting
The Rio+20 outcome
document “The future
we want”, (para 96) as
endorsed
by
A/Res/66/288
and
GA/Res/67/226, (para
15)
Framework for Advancing Environmental and
Social Sustainability in
the UN system
Meeting minutes from
EMG meeting
What?
Where?
The adoption of the Strategic Plan on Sustainability The Strategic Plan on
Management in the UN system
Sustainability Management in the UN system
When?
August 2011
Who?
EMG
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
A/Res/66/288
http://sustainabledeve
lopment.un.org/future
wewant.html)
GA/Res/67/226, (para
15)
http://www.un.org/ga
Web link
http://www.greeningt
heblue.org/sites/defau
lt/files/strategic%20pl
an%20for%20sustain
ability%20management%
20in%20un%20versi
on%208%20%2023%208%20201
1(3).pdf
http://www.unemg.or
g/images/emgdocs/pu
blications/sustainabilityfin
alweb-.pdf
2012 and January 2013
104
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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/search/view_doc.asp
?symbol=A/RES/67/
226
HLCM
General Assembly
Who?
EMG
105
When?
What?
27 November The Senior Officials Meeting of the EMG agreed that a
2012
combination of both the Sustainable UN facility and
related system-wide network (IMG) is the most costeffective way to guarantee a continued support for the
implementation of the Strategic Plan on Environmental
Sustainability Management and asks to defer to HLCM
and CEB a final decision on this.
December
GA resolution on renewable energies: “Sustainable De2012
velopment: Promotion of new and renewable sources of
energy” “Calls upon the Secretary-General to promote
renewable energy and related sustainable practices in all
UN facilities around the world, from within existing
resources”.
7-8
March Committed to the development and implementation of
2013
environmental sustainability management
systems in each organization, through a gradual, voluntary and flexible process as described in the ‘Strategic
plan for environmental sustainability management in the
UN system’, focusing on low-investment and high return
initiatives, and through mainstreaming of EMS in the
programming and planning processes and increased
coordination on this subject among the relevant HLCM
networks. As part of the EMS approach, HLCM should
focus on making the concept of total cost of ownership
Web link
from http://www.unemg.
org/images/emgdoc
s/SOMMeetings/20
12/EMGSOM%201
803%20Progr&Acti
ons%208-10-12.pdf
Meeting minutes from http://unsceb.org/co
HLCM meeting (page 12, ntent/report-25thpara 81-82)
session-march2013-rome
The Strategic Plan on
Sustainability Management in the UN system,
p.14
UN General Assembly http://www.un.org/g
Resolution
a/search/view_doc.a
A/RES/67/215
sp?symbol=A/RES/
67/215
Where?
Meeting minutes
EMG meeting
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
March 2013
5 April 2013
HLCM
CEB
106
http://www.unsceb.
org/CEBPublicFiles
/REP_CEB_201305
_CEB-20131_0.pdf
HLCM Strategic Plan http://www.unsceb.
2013-2016, para 19
org/content/hlcmstrategic-plan-2013The full HLCM Results 2016
Framework is available
on Unite.
The strategic plan is linked to a series of deliverables
that make the HLCM Results Framework.
CEB endorsed the HLCM decision and further detailed Meeting minutes from
the engagement of UN heads towards EMS.
CEB meeting, para 12
“When considering innovative business models, the
Committee would seek to achieve measurable progress
to enhance the environmental sustainability of United
Also as a result of the adoption of the Strategic Plan for
environmental sustainability management, four sustainability indicators will be compulsory for all UN organizations to report on.
In considering innovative business models, HLCM will
seek to achieve measurable progress to enhance environmental sustainability of UN operations, through joint
initiatives possibly focused on facilities management
and procurement.
fully integrated into procurement rules and practices.
Requested UNEP to continue their work of coordination,
technical support and reporting, noting the system-wide
benefits of efficiencies, knowledge and experience sharing, and mutual support, and invited UNEP to report to
the HLCM on collective achievements and forward
planning on behalf of the EMG.
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
Who?
When?
Issue Management 2014
Group (IMG) on
environmental sustainability management and SUN
CEB
October 2014
107
What?
The Environmental Management System Milestones
Framework for the UN system was developed by the
IMG and SUN to guide UN organizations through the
steps on how to implement an environmental management system.
Approved the UN System Organizational Resilience
Management System (ORMS) policy, its associated key
performance indicators, and the supporting maintenance,
exercise and review regime.
Nations operations and to broaden the scope and ambition of its already advanced agenda on joint or collaborative operations through successful pilot initiatives. Specifically, it would aim to rapidly move towards the development of options for the consolidation and/or pooling of support services.”
Web link
See UNITE
Meeting minutes from https://www.unsceb
CEB, CEB/2014/5, p.11
.org/CEBPublicFile
s/HighLevel%20Committee%
20on%20Managem
ent/Document/CEB
-2014-2%20%20HLCM%2028
%20%20final%20report.
pdf
Where?
See UNITE
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
28 October
2015
108
Agreed to achieve those system-wide goals, to integrate
the objective of “improved environmental sustainability
of UN operations” into the respective programming of
facilities and operations, including designing organization-specific action plans.
Requests the Secretary-General, as a follow-up to para- Seventieth session of the
graph 96 of the outcome document, entitled “The Future Second Committee
We Want”, of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to submit an Action Plan for the
United Nations Secretariat that will be designed to work
within existing procurement rules and policies aimed at
integrating sustainable development practices into its
operations and facilities management, building on existing efforts and promoting cost effectiveness, and in
Secretary- 23 September “…The United Nations is doing its part. We will be Secretary-General's openclimate neutral by 2020.”
ing remarks at 2014 CliBan Ki- 2014
mate Summit
19-20 March Committed itself to reaching climate neutrality by 2020 Meeting minutes from
2015
through a combination of emission-reduction initiatives HLCM, para 53
and purchase of offsets; Adopted a United Nations road
17 April 2015
map towards climate neutrality by 2020; Recognized Meeting minutes from
that, while carbon offsets were an important tool, focus CEB, CEB/2015/3, p.9
should be placed on reducing the actual carbon footprint
of the United Nations system;
The General
Assembly
CEB
UN
General
Moon
HLCM
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
No meeting minutes
from CEB on the
webpage yet
http://www.un.org/s
g/statements/index.
asp?nid=8028
http://www.unsceb.
org/CEBPublicFiles
/CEB_2015_3%20
%28HLCM%2029
%29.pdf
109
accordance with legislative frameworks, including financial rules and regulations, while maintaining accountability to Member States – with the specific goal of
a United Nations that does not, through its operations or
facilities management, negatively impact the climate, as
soon as possible, or by 2020, if practicable.
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
Internal UN / FAO mandate
Frequency (F)
infrequent/small quantities
sometimes/medium quantities
always/large quantities
Ranking (R) = S * F
3
Value
1
2
3
Not compliant
high
110
in Influence
(Inf)
little or no
efficient control influence
inefficient con- some influtrol
ence
substantial
no control
influence
Importance
(Imp)
/ Controls
Compliance (C) Sensitivity
place (Ct)
Value Requirement (R)
No legal or voluntary require1
ment
Compliant
low
External legal or voluntary re- Partially com2
quirement
pliant
medium
Severity (S) = R + C + Imp + Ct + Inf
The below assessment method to identify significant environmental aspects is used by FAO.
Appendix 3: Exemple of evaluation criteria for significant environmental aspects
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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Appendix 4: The questions in the EMS survey
The EMS Milestones Framework survey
The survey was sent out using the tool Google Forms.
As agreed upon in the first meeting of the Working Group of 2015, SUN is conducting a survey to assess to progress of the EMS Milestones Framework.
The main purpose is to understand the level of EMS framework implementation in
the EMS WG with the view to:




Confirm whether the EMS milestones framework is used, and customize the support from SUN
Perform benchmarking
Report progress (HLCM and Sida)
Provide material that can be used for reporting to senior management in each organization
The survey is divided into the phases of the Milestones Framework: Prepare, Plan,
Do, Check, Act. The results will be presented as a percentage of all questions and
percentage per phase. Organizations will be classified based on their progress:
bronze (20% or ≥ 8 statements completed), silver (50% or ≥ 18 statements completed) and gold (80% or ≥ 28 statements completed). In total 36 questions; the
option “None of the above” will be counted as zero.
Individual reports will be sent, along with a summary report with a table comparing
all organizations. Organizations can choose to remain anonymous.
Name of respondent:________________________
Name of organization:____________________
(For next year’s survey: remember to have line for email address:_______________________)
I would prefer to remain anonymous 1. What steps has your organization taken to prepare the EMS? (6 questions)
Management has approved the environmental policy112 Executive level commitment has been obtained to conduct an EMS in the organization A senior manager or high level sponsor has been designated Relevant high‐level internal or external stakeholders have been identified A coordinator/EMS focal point has been appointed 112
This can also include a sustainability policy or other policy that considers environmental issues
111
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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A related task force and/or working group(s) has been developed None of the above 2. What steps has your organization taken to plan the EMS? (13 questions)
The scope of the EMS has been identified (geographical and/or functional) Legal and regulatory implications have been identified. Environmental aspects have been identified The impact of activities on environmental aspects have been identified The impacts of the activities on the aspects have been measured The significance of the impacts on each aspect has been rated. Among the highest impacts, the capacity of the organization to control or manage these has been identified Objectives and targets have been developed An initial management review has been performed for the establishment of objectives/targets A programme or plan for achieving targets and objectives has been devel‐
oped Key problems/barriers have been identified Performance indicators have been established Final management approval/endorsement for specific plan and objec‐
tives/targets has been obtained None of the above 3. What steps has your organization taken to Do (i.e. implement and opera‐
tionalize) the EMS? (9 questions) Roles and responsibilities have been established, and the authority to execute action plan has been designated.
Necessary resources for implementation of the plan/programme (human and capital) have been identified The training needs have been evaluated and training has been provided Operational controls113 have been established. Further training is provid‐
ed where needed. The programme objectives and implementation process have been com‐
municated to internal and external stakeholders The programmes have been implemented/the organization is working ac‐
cording to the programme. Documentation necessary for the environmental management system has been identified. Processes and responsibilities for document creation and control have been identified The documentation has been created and integrated into the EMS and in‐
to the organization’s own management system None of the above 113
Such as records, procedures, work instructions, and/or physical controls related to the specific
plan/programme
112
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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4. What steps has your organization taken to check your EMS? (3 questions)
Results of actions taken have been monitored and reviewed
Preventive and corrective actions, based on deviations, have been identified
An internal audit have been carried out
None of the above 5. What steps has your organization taken to act your EMS (5 questions)
A management review has been conducted Reporting procedures and instructions have been established Reporting has been made periodically to internal and external stakehold‐
ers on the overall EMS process as well as specific activities, targets, and indicators. Feedback according to established communication and operational con‐
trols has been received and processed The organization has been cycled through the Plan‐Do‐Check‐Act at least once (e.g. had a second management review or a second internal audit). None of the above 113
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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Appendix 5: Members of CEB and EMG
Members of CEB
Organization
FAO
IAEA
ICAO
IFAD
ILO
IMF
IMO
ITU
UN
UNCTAD
UNDP
UNEP
UNESCO
UNFPA
UN-HABITAT
UNHCR
UNICEF
UNIDO
UNODC
UNRWA
UNWOMEN
Salutation
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Dr.
Ms.
Mr.
Ms.
Dr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.
UNWTO
UPU
Mr.
Mr.
WFP
WHO
WIPO
WMO
World Bank
WTO
Ms.
Dr.
Mr.
Mr.
Dr.
Mr.
Head of Organization
José Graziano da Silva
Yukiya Amano
Raymond Benjamin
Kanayo Nwanze
Guy Ryder
Christine Lagarde
Koji Sekimiz
Hamadoun Toure
Secretary-General
Mukhisa Kituyi
Helen Clark
Achim Steiner
Irina Bokova
Babatunde Osotimehin
Joan Clos
Antonio Guterres
Anthony Lake
Li Yong
Yury Fedotov
Pierre Krähenbühl
Phumzile MlamboNgcuka
Taleb Rifai
Bishar Abdirahman
Hussein
Ertharin Cousin
Margaret Chan
Francis Gurry
Michel Jarraud
Jim Yong Kim
Roberto Carvalho de
Azevêdo
114
Designation
Director-General
Director-General
Secretary-General
Director-General
Director-General
Managing Director
Secretary-General
Secretary-General
Secretary-General
Secretary-General
Administrator
Executive Director
Director-General
Executive Director
Executive Director
High Commissioner
Executive Director
Director-General
Director-General
Commissioner-General
Executive Director
Secretary-General
Director-General
Executive Director
Director-General
Director-General
Secretary-General
President
Director-General
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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Members of EMG
Organization
BRS
CBD
Salutation
Mr.
Mr.
CITES
CMS
DFS
ECA
ECE
ECLAC
ESCAP
ESCWA
FAO
GEF
IAEA
ICAO
IFAD
ILO
IMF
IMO
ISDR
ITC
ITU
OCHA
Mr.
Dr.
Ms.
Dr.
Mr.
Ms.
Dr.
Ms.
Mr.
Dr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.
Mr.
Ms.
Ms.
Mr.
Mr.
OHCHR
Ramsar
UNCCD
UNCTAD
UNDESA/DSD
UNDP
UNEP
UNESCO
UNFCCC
UNFPA
UN-HABITAT
UNHCR
UNICEF
UNIDO
UNITAR
UNOPS
Prince
Dr.
Ms.
Dr.
Mr.
Ms.
Mr.
Ms.
Ms.
Dr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.
Ms.
Head of Organization
Rolph Payet
Braulio Ferreira de
Souza Dias
John Scanlon
Dr. Bradnee Chambers
Atul Khare
Carlos Lopes
Christian Friis Bach
Alicia Bárcena
Shamshad Akhtar
Rima Khalaf
José Graziano da Silva
Naoko Ishii
Yukiya Amano
Raymond Benjamin
Kanayo Nwanze
Guy Ryder
Christine Lagarde
Koji Sekimiz
Margareta Wahlström
Arancha González
Hamadoun Toure
Stephen Rothwell
O'Brien
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein
Christopher Briggs
Monique Barbut
Mukhisa Kituyi
Wu Hongbo
Helen Clark
Achim Steiner
Irina Bokova
Christiana Figueres
Babatunde Osotimehin
Joan Clos
Antonio Guterres
Anthony Lake
Li Yong
Sally Fegan-Wyles
Grete Faremo
115
Designation
Executive Secretary
Executive Secretary
Secretary-General
Executive Secretary
USG
Executive Secretary
Executive Secretary
Executive Secretary
Executive Secretary
Executive Secretary
Director-General
CEO and Chairperson
Director-General
Secretary-General
Director-General
Director-General
Managing Director
Secretary-General
Secretary-General
Executive Director
Secretary-General
USG
High Commissioner
Secretary General
Executive Secretary
Secretary-General
USG
Administrator
Executive Director
Director-General
Executive Secretary
Executive Director
Executive Director
High Commissioner
Executive Director
Director-General
Executive Director
Executive Director
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
UNU
UNWOMEN
Dr.
Ms.
UNWTO
UPU
Mr.
Mr.
WFP
WHO
WIPO
WMO
World Bank
WTO
Ms.
Dr.
Mr.
Mr.
Dr.
Mr.
David M. Malone
Phumzile MlamboNgcuka
Taleb Rifai
Bishar Abdirahman
Hussein
Ertharin Cousin
Margaret Chan
Francis Gurry
Michel Jarraud
Jim Yong Kim
Roberto Carvalho de
Azevêdo
116
Rector
Executive Director
Secretary-General
Director-General
Executive Director
Director-General
Director-General
Secretary-General
President
Director-General
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
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Appendix 6: Abbreviations and acronyms
ASG
BCM
CEB
CITES
Assistant Secretary General
Business Continuity Management
Chief Executives Board
Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
CO2
Carbon dioxide
CPR
Committee of Permanent Representatives
DPKO
Department of Peacekeeping Operations
EMAS
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
EMG
Environment Management Group
EMS
Environmental Management System
EMS WG
Environmental Management System Working Group
ESCAP
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
ESES Framework Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability
Framework
ESS
Environmental and Social Sustainability
FAO
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
GCF
Green Climate Fund
GEF
Global Environment Facility
GHG
Greenhouse gas
GRI
Global Reporting Initiative
HLCM
High Level Committee on Management
HLCM PN
High Level Committee on Management’s Procurement Network
IFAD
International Fund for Agricultural Development
IAMLADP
International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements,
Documentation and Publications
IMG
Issue Management Group
INFM
Inter-Agency Network of Facilities Managers
ISO
International Organization for Standardization
JIU
Joint Inspection Unit
MDGs
Millennium Development Goals
MINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
MONUSCO United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the
Democratic Republic of Congo
OIOS
Office of Internal Oversight Services
OLA
Office of Legal Affairs
ORMS
Organizational Resilience Management System
PDCA cycle Plan, do, check, act cycle
PoW
Programme of Work
SDGs
Sustainable Development Goals
SMS
Sustainability Management System
SOM
Senior Officials Meeting
SRD
Sectorial Reference Documents
117
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
SUN
Swedish EPA
ToR
UN
UNDG
UNEA
UNEP
UNIFIL
UNITAR
UN-NGLS
UN/NY
UNOG
UNON
UNU
WFP
WTO
Sustainable United Nations
Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
Terms of Reference
United Nations
United Nations Development Group
United Nations Environment Assembly
United Nations Environment programme
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
United Nations Institute for Training and Research
United Nations Non-governmental Liaison Service
United Nations Headquarter in New York
United Nations Office at Geneva
United Nations Office at Nairobi
UN University
World Food Program
World Trade Organization
118
A tool contributing to the SDGs Fulfill env. requirements from MS and
donors Normative role in international
agreements Minimizing environmental impact Financial savings Contribute to green economy Avoid environmental risks Contribute to UN’s purpose in the long
run •
•
Positive
OPPORTUNITIES
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Understanding of stakeholders High level commitments within the
UN system Infrastructure for environmental decisions Infrastructure for exchange of best
practice – SUN, GtB, networks Four sustainability indicators Emergency management system One UN initiative
•
•
STRENGTHS
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
WEAKNESSES
119
Negative
THREATS
Competing for resources, not least
human resources Political process, takes long time Dependent on agreements with
landlords for env. improvements
Few environmental policies established Not clear roles and responsibilities Few baseline reviews/initial environmental reviews made Few internal environmental audits Few measurable environmental objectives Human resources for EMS not part of
budget No information on websites about internal environmental work
Appendix 7: SWOT analysis for the implementation of EMSs in the UN system
SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REPORT 6712
Environmental Management Systems in the United Nations
Environmental
Management Systems
in the United Nations
Results of a stocktaking exercise undertaken
year 2015, describing the development and
implementation of environmental management
systems (EMS) across the UN system
REPORT 6712
SWEDISH EPA
ISBN 978-91-620-6712-0
ISSN 0282-7298
The authors assume sole
responsibility for the contents of this report, which
therefore cannot be cited
as representing the views
of the Swedish EPA.
KRISTINA VON OELREICH AND EMMA HÅKANSSON
For the United Nations to succeed in its purposes and to be a
credible organization, it needs to account for its environmental impact, reducing risks and unintended negative impacts
and maximizing benefits to people and their environment.
Implementing environmental management systems (EMS)
will provide UN agencies with a systematic and transparent
tool to track and report on progress on environmental performance over time, whilst working towards the internalization
of the environmental dimension of the Sustainable Development Goals in their management processes.
The purpose of the stocktaking exercise was to provide
an overview of the current status of environmental management systems of different UN organizations, to make sure future activities in the Swedish EPA - UNEP partnership build
on existing work, and to reach a better understanding of how
to introduce EMSs to the UN system. Based on the findings
made, the stocktaking exercise provides recommendations for
improvements. It is for example recommended that certain
core functions are managed on a common UN-wide basis –
just as some are already today - to streamline and coordinate
activities, and to avoid duplication of efforts and costs. This
also brings the advantage of a coherent way of working in the
spirit of the One UN reform.
Swedish EPA SE-106 48 Stockholm. Visiting address: Stockholm - Valhallavägen 195, Östersund - Forskarens väg 5 hus Ub, .
Tel: +46 10 698 10 00, fax: +46 10 698 10 99, e-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.swedishepa.se Orders Ordertel: +46 8 505 933 40,
orderfax: +46 8 505 933 99, e-mail: [email protected] Address: CM Gruppen, Box 110 93, SE-161 11 Bromma. Internet: www.swedishepa.se/publications