On 8 November, the United Nations launched its latest system-wide overview of environmental sustainability: the Greening the Blue Report 2021.
The Report focuses on the environmental impacts of over 315,000 personnel in Headquarters, field offices and operations on the ground.
Using 2020 data from 56 UN system entities, this edition is the first to reveal impacts from COVID-19 on the UN system's environmental footprint.
It also expands reporting on the management functions identified in the Strategy for Sustainability Management in the United Nations 2020-2030, Phase I: Environmental Sustainability in the Area of Management.
Data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, climate neutrality, waste, air pollution, water and wastewater, and biodiversity from 56 UN system entities is included in the Report.
Drastic drop in emissions
In 2020, the UN's operations and facilities emitted ~1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2eq) in total.
With significant worldwide travel restrictions and large portions of UN personnel working from home, the UN system generated approximately 25 per cent fewer GHG emissions than in 2019.
The halt of most missions alone accounted for a reduction of more than 1600 tCO2eq compared to 2019, around 86 per cent compared to the 2019 emissions from mission flights.
Despite imposing radical changes in work and travel patterns worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic also highlighted opportunities for the UN system to revisit its working and travel modalities in order to come closer to meeting the ambitious emissions reductions' targets that it has set for itself for 2030.
How did ITU do?
A case study on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is featured in the report on page 14.
ITU's worldwide operations and facilities emitted 2105 tonnes of CO2eq in total (or 2.17 tCO2eq per capita), 46 per cent less than in 2019.
ITU also figures among the 99 per cent of UN entities that were climate neutral in 2020, meaning that the organization offset 100 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions. This is the 5th year in a row that ITU is climate neutral.
While offsetting remains an important factor in managing unavoidable emissions, the priority should be emissions reductions and elimination.
Several initiatives have been implemented with the goal of reducing ITU's environmental impact. The organization plans to continue these efforts over the next years to further improve environmental sustainability performance.
Read the full Greening the Blue Report 2021 here.
