United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS)
HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark
Number of staff: approx. 3,285
Number of locations: 22 (4 regional offices)
Key figures
Total emissions: 13,715 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Emissions per staff member: 4.2 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Emissions from air travel: 4,913 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Air travel as a proportion of total emissions: 36%
Air travel per staff member: 1.5 tonnes CO2
Building-related emissions: 71.2 kg CO2 equivalent per square metre
“Promoting sustainable development and reducing our climate impact is simply a necessity, in order for us to continue delivering development results for people in need, now and in the future.”
Jan Mattsson, Executive Director (UNOPS)
Executive Director's Message
"Climate change, and more broadly our unsustainable production and consumption patterns, are already eroding development gains and threaten to do even more so in the close future. As a member of the UN family, we feel that reversing these patterns is close to the heart of our mandate. At UNOPS, we focus on translating international commitments into action on the ground. When it comes to climate change, this means considering how to mitigate our climate change impacts in everything we do. This applies to projects that we implement of behalf of our partners, and to our internal operations management. We are motivated to ensure that both our organization and our projects have lasting impacts. Promoting sustainable development and reducing our climate impact is simply a necessity, in order for us to continue delivering development results for people in need, now and in the future."
Jan Mattsson
Mission
UNOPS mission is to expand the capacity of the UN system and its partners to implement peacebuilding, humanitarian and development operations that matter for people in need.
Working in some of the world’s most challenging environments, UNOPS vision is to always satisfy partners with management services that meet world-class standards of quality, speed and cost effectiveness.
UNOPS customizes its support to individual partner needs, offering everything from stand-alone transactional services to long-term management of development projects. These services are offered in three main areas: sustainable infrastructure, sustainable procurement and sustainable project management.
Partners range from UN organizations and international financial institutions to governments, non-governmental and private organizations.
Experience so far
UNOPS has approached emission reduction in a range of ways. For example:
- An emission reduction strategy setting out general principles for the organization has been drafted.
- A network of environmental focal points has been created around the world to measure UNOPS progress using the greenhouse gas emission inventory.
- UNOPS is seeking ISO 14001 certification for its infrastructure projects
- A range of sustainability projects, such as in renewable energy, sustainable building construction and capacity development in sustainable procurement have been implemented.
Reduction efforts
UNOPS aims to integrate sustainability into all of its operations, drastically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and other negative impacts on the environment and societies, and has taken a pledge to offset the emissions that it cannot reduce.
Offsetting
UNOPS aims to integrate sustainability into all of its operations, drastically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and other negative impacts on the environment and societies, and has taken a pledge to offset the emissions that it cannot reduce.
Next steps
The priority for the next inventory round is to improve the quality of emission data.
In terms of emission reductions, in 2013-2014, UNOPS aims to implement its organizational emission reduction strategy as well as the first group of emission reduction plans for its country offices. The emission reduction strategy will also be connected to the development of an organizational environmental management system.
