The mandate
UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon
On 5 June (World Environment Day) 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made public his ambition to make the United Nations more efficient in its operations:
“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 United Nations headquarters and offices around the globe.”
5 June 2007, Address to World Tourism Organization, World Environment Day.
Chief Executive Board: UN Climate Neutral Strategy
At the October 2007 meeting of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), the Executive Heads of UN agencies, funds and programmes committed to move their respective organizations towards climate neutrality. In particular, they agreed to:
- Estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of UN system organizations consistent with accepted international standards;
- Undertake efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
- Analyze the cost implications and explore budgetary modalities of purchasing carbon offsets to eventually reach climate neutrality
For more details see the UN Climate Neutral Strategy.
Millennium Development Goal 7: Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
Milliennium Development Goal 7 (Ensuring Environmental Sustainability) sets out four targets to be achieved by 2015. These are:
a) Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
b) Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
c) Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
d) By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
