Staff engagement

With over 130,000 staff (including peacekeepers) the United Nations is among the larger employers in the world.

Staff have a critical role to play in enhancing the sustainability of the organization: they can use their influence to ensure that systems and processes become more sustainable; they can change their behaviours so that their environmental footprint is reduced; they can add social value through the way they interact with our stakeholders; and they can communicate the values of the United Nations through their work, every day, both in the office and in the field.

A key requirement for successful implementation of the UN Climate Neutral Strategy is to gain the full support of the staff. While most UN staff are well aware of the challenge that climate change poses and how they may address this through UN’s external work, they are often do not realize how they too can contribute to reducing the UN’s climate footprint. Training and awareness are consequently core activities.

In 2008 twenty-five UN organizations undertook various forms of staff training and awareness campaigns including:

• Regular staff training on climate neutrality and improved greening practices, as well as informal sessions
• Intranet sites highlighting efforts to reduce the climate footprint, and usually also to improve the sustainability of the organization;
• Campaigns use of energy, water and paper, using multi-media, art installations, posters, handouts, rolling clips on TV monitors, etc

For several years now, staff members in many UN organizations have been volunteering to promote sustainable practices, including climate neutrality. As part of the UN climate-neutral effort, these groups met up with the UN climate neutral focal points for a two-day workshop in 2009, leading to an agreement to coordinate and cooperate among these groups and focal points, thus further enhancing staff awareness and commitment.

Resources 

Click here to see the resources available for anyone wanting to raise awareness of sustainability issues in their organization.

Case studies

Check out some case studies of what other organizations have done here.