Peacekeeping and Special Political missions

FIELD OFFICES

www.un.org/en/peacekeeping

https://dppa.un.org/en/dppa-around-world

ALIGNMENT WITH THE STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT IN THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM, 2020–2030

Across the global Peace Operations, an environmental performance and risk management framework is in place, including the use of ‘scorecards’ to track performance, risks levels, actions and improvements.

EMISSIONS REDUCTION

Peacekeeping and Field-Based Special Political Missions have seen reductions of GHG emissions on an absolute and per capita basis since the start of the Environment Strategy for Peace Operations (2017).

EMS AND REDUCTION EFFORTS

DOS (OICT) has developed bespoke environmental Action Planning and Performance software to support missions to:

Improve data collection and analytics;
Integrate results into formal reporting and accountability mechanisms for senior management; and
Enable environmental actions to be fed into the planning and budgeting processes to ensure senior management oversight, inform the prioritisation of resources, and support effective mainstreaming of environmental responsibilities throughout operations.

Other elements of EMS include:

The translation of the Environmental Strategy into a series of actions for civilian and uniformed personnel that contribute to reducing each mission’s environmental footprint, and associated awareness campaigns (collateral available on GtB).
Competency development on EMS assessment methods for field staff across the Secretariat, and provision of various other technical training for environmental and engineering counterparts in the field. Missions conduct induction training in the field of both UN and Uniformed personnel (some 100,000 participants p.a.).
Establishment of centralized resources in the Global Support Centre and in the REACT facility to provide and deploy specialized environmental technical support to missions.
Co-ordination and best practice sharing of efforts across the field entities through technical working groups focused on Energy, Water & Wastewater and Waste.
Strategic assessment of risks and opportunities and enabling processes to achieve the UN environmental objectives, through the DOS Environmental Strategy for Peace Operations (2017-2023).

Each year, as part of the Greening the Blue Report on Environmental Governance, each participating UN entity’s progress on the development of an Environmental Management System (EMS) is evaluated according to the UN system’s EMS criteria (these criteria are available on the Methodology webpage). Upon this evaluation the entity is then rated Exceeds, Meets, Approaches, or No response. For the 2022 reporting year, field missions’s progress on the EMS is rated as: Meets.

ENVIRONMENTAL & SOCIAL SAFEGUARDS AND STANDARDS IN POLICIES, PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES

For the 2022 reporting year, field missions’s status of implementing environmental and social safeguards and standards in their policies, projects and programmes is: Yes.

ENVIRONMENTAL TRAINING FOR PERSONNEL

Environmental training is delivered in-person, on-site within missions, tailored to the mission’s operational setting and environmental objectives. The aim is to train all personnel. In 2022, 97% of civilians and 96% of uniformed components received environmental training / induction briefings.

In addition, an environmental awareness generation package for use by troop and police contributing countries has been developed in collaboration with the Triangular Partnership Program. Available on the Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System, the package has been translated into several national languages.

For the 2022 reporting year, field missions’s status on providing training on environmental sustainability is Yes, and it is mandatory for all personnel.

ENVIRONMENTAL INVENTORY APPROACH

Scope 1 and 2. Scope 3: Commercial and chartered air travel. In some cases, estimates are calculated on a per capita basis. These are for small sites, and are below ‘de minimus’ levels. Other entities hosted by the PKOs have been excluded from the reported figures (on a per capita basis).

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Within missions, waste management plans inform actions towards improving performance, reducing risk, and supporting investment decisions. Gaps in capacity and operational controls are identified and investments (including multi-year projects) for improved waste management, supported by business cases, and are prioritized appropriately.

The below actions are underway to improve waste management across field operations:

Development of system contracts for equipment based on the centralized, sub-sector and remote waste management yards concept, including long term servicing and training.
Improved end-to-end supply chain management, take-back schemes, e-waste management solutions, awareness campaigns and capacity building on improving hazardous waste inventory, disposal and remediation methods throughout mission lifecycles.
Operation of centralized waste management yards to sort, recycle and treat waste streams in the largest UN camps where no external waste management facilities are available.
Increased efforts to reduce material consumption through behavioural and systemic improvements, such as the ban of single-use plastics, where applicable.

Missions will focus efforts to ensure implementation of best practices and solutions and improve waste management compliance and performance and data reporting of uniformed contingents, contractors and all UN personnel.

WATER AND WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT

The overall approach to water and wastewater within field operations is grounded in risk management, enabled by appropriate technology, policy and guidelines, capacity building, monitoring and compliance, and resource optimization.

The below actions are underway to improve water and wastewater management across field operations:

New guidance materials to support missions in planning and operations, including the SOP for the Development of Wastewater Management Plans and the Water, Wastewater Risk Assessment and the Water and Wastewater Manual.
A new system contract for wastewater solutions to provide options for wastewater treatment technologies according to needs and skills.
Demand management to reduce both consumption and wastewater generation, with water metering targeting sustainable abstraction.
Meters are being installed, with technical specifications for water-saving fixtures available in support of procurement actions.
Increasing the use of alternative water sources, including reuse of treated wastewater in gardening and dust control.
Implementation of risk mitigation plans to keep risk levels at the minimum.

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES

ENERGY

Energy Infrastructure Management Plans have been developed in key missions. While tailored to the specific, and often unique, operating environment of each mission, common approaches across missions include:

Acceleration of deployment of energy efficient equipment and sensors with the availability of new global system contracts.
Centralization of power generation and distribution systems.
Implementation of renewable energy projects inside UN camps, and outsourcing of energy supply through decentralized power purchase agreements that can create secondary benefits for host communities leaving a positive legacy.
Connecting to local utility grids with a share of renewable energy.

Key strategic initiatives to support this work include:

Supporting the development of centralized and local contracts for the acquisition of energy and efficiency equipment.
Technical environmental support, including feasibility studies, analysis and concept designs of the projects, and facilitation of partnerships to attract third-party investments in host country's renewable energy infrastructure.
Promote the deployment of renewables by Troop/Police Contributing Countries.
Continue the development of metering and monitoring systems to enable missions to manage the operational efficiency of the power production fleet and plan upgrade projects.

NEXT STEPS

In line with the mandates from the General Assembly in A/RES/76/274 and A/77/19 to continue efforts in environmental management beyond the initial six years of the Environment Strategy, the Department ofd Operational Support facilitated a consultation process with field missions and the full UN Membership over the past year. Drawing on input from these consultations, a document outlining the proposed way forward was developed, covering the period until 2030 and putting forward three key themes: responsibility, ambition and legacy. A fully consulted and agreed way forward for the Environment Strategy is envisioned to be finalised by December 2023.