Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

www.unescap.org

Sustainability @ ESCAP

HQ: Bangkok, Thailand
Focal Point: Ms. Flavia Reale / Mr. Stephen Rieger
Email: [email protected] / [email protected] 

Internal Sustainability Team: 1 EMS Officer and 1 graphic designer (part-time)

 

The entity may not report waste data for all its personnel. Please refer to the entity's personnel chart below for more information.
All entity personnel are included in the entity's greenhouse gas emission inventory.

FIELD OFFICES 

8 field offices including HQ (2 field offices cover 2 ESCAP entities each):

  1. Almaty, Kazakhstan
  2. Bangkok, Thailand (HQ)
  3. Beijing, China
  4. Chiba, Japan
  5. Incheon, ROK
  6. New Delhi, India
  7. Suva, Fiji
  8. Tehran, Iran

MISSION 

As the regional arm of the United Nations, ESCAP is the most inclusive intergovernmental platform in the Asia-Pacific region. ESCAP’s mission is to support inclusive, resilient and sustainable development in the region by generating action-oriented knowledge, and by providing technical assistance and capacity-building services in support of national development objectives, regional agreements and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ESCAP provides administrative and facilities services to all UN agencies located at the UN Compound in Bangkok thus playing a key role in the environmental sustainability of UN operations in the country.

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

In alignment with the UN strategy for sustainability management, ESCAP:

  • Have been reporting its emissions since 2010 and supported the GHG reporting of UN entities located at its compound

  • Implemented an EMS since 2018  

  • Included green procurement specifications into large procurement exercises and all facilities related procurement

  • Included environmental goals in its senior management compact and budget documents

EMISSION REDUCTION

86% emission reduction in 2022 compared to 2010. This is the result of continuous energy-saving efforts, the establishment of an EMS, the reduced air travel and building occupancy during COVID-19 pandemic, and the purchase of I-RECs to source 100% of ESCAP’s electricity consumption from local renewables.

Since 2002, ESCAP has implemented a series of energy efficiency projects that have enabled ESCAP HQ to reduce the Compound’s total energy consumption by 30% between 2003 and 2018. This improvement in energy efficiency brought about the decrease of electricity consumption and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from 7,590 to 5,514 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year during the same period. This was achieved through building technical reviews and the corresponding retrofit projects based on a plan of progressive system improvements, with the replacement of building plant, machinery and equipment and the associated operating procedures of building systems. The reductions have primarily come from the air-conditioning systems, as cooling is required year round in Bangkok.

Energy saving projects include renovation and automation of elevators at the UN complex with regenerative braking, replacement of air handling units, pumps (chilled and condenser water), improvement of chiller operation, condenser piping and cooling tower upgrades, installation of energy efficient lighting, window seal replacement, installation of solar panels and wind turbines, to name but few. ESCAP has achieved these improvements through the regular budget system and thus have been incremental over the years.

With the Seismic Mitigation and Life Cycle Project injecting significant funds over the coming few years, we will implement many green design items within the renovation. This should result in the Secretariat building’s energy efficiency reducing consumption by 16+% once the renovations are completed.

EMS AND REDUCTION EFFORTS

In 2018, ESCAP established an Environmental Management System for its facilities and operations to mainstream and expand its environmental work. The EMS provides a systematic approach towards emission reduction and improves environmental sustainability in the following areas: energy, waste, water, meetings, and travel. Staff awareness is a cross-cutting component fully integrated into all work areas of ESCAP’s environmental action.

All UN agencies located at the UN Compound in Bangkok are part of the EMS governance structure to ensure a One-UN approach and stakeholder involvement.

The EMS has helped the organization achieve further environmental progress since its establishment (2021 vs 2016 baseline), namely:

  • 40% energy savings

  • 80% office waste recycling (+46%)

  • 60% freshwater savings

  • 100% electricity from renewable energy (I-RECs + onsite solar panels)

  • 100% emissions offset – Climate neutral

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, ESCAP’s progress on the EMS is rated as: Meets.

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

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

ENVIRONMENTAL TRAINING FOR PERSONNEL

A mandatory training session titled "Environmental Emergencies and Preparedness Response" was held on 12 & 13 June 2023. All FMU personnel participated in this training that aimed to ensure that personnel is equipped with the right knowledge and skills to identify, prevent, manage, and report potential environmental emergencies within the UN Bangkok Compound. The training also complies with the ISO 14001 Standard that ESCAP’s Environmental Management System follows since 2018.

For the 2022 reporting year, ESCAP's status on providing training on environmental sustainability is: Yes, it is mandatory for staff only (consultants, individual contractors are voluntary).

ENVIRONMENTAL INVENTORY APPROACH

ESCAP’s GHG Inventory includes all emissions from operations and facilities at ESCAP HQ and its 7 regional offices. Actual consumption data is used for most of its offices. The HQ facilities’ emissions also include the emissions of other UN Secretariat entities based in Bangkok (Ombudsman, UNDSS, OICT, DCO).

ESCAP purchases I-RECs to claim 100% of its electricity from renewables. I-RECs cover all ESCAP regional offices and UN entities hosted at the UN Compound in Bangkok managed by ESCAP.

OFFSETTING 

ESCAP has been climate neutral since 2017 by purchasing carbon emission reduction credits from certified projects in the region. In 2017, ESCAP organised its first carbon neutral meeting and developed a calculator (ECO tool) to estimate its meeting emissions and offset them. Since the establishment of the EMS in April 2018, the organisation has committed to offset all its main intergovernmental meetings’ emissions in its first EMS cycle (2018-2022). In 2019, ESCAP organised four climate neutral meetings and in 2020/2021 most of its intergovernmental meeting were fully online.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Waste is among the focus areas of ESCAP’s environmental action. The main highlights are:

  • Ban of single use catering items (beyond plastics). 9 tons of waste prevented annually.

  • Replacement of staff individual bins with centralized recycling stations by work area to boost recycling (80% recycling achieved in 2021 at the HQ).  

  • Identification of reuse, composting, and recycling options for most waste items supporting local communities and recyclers.

  • Implementation of environmental guidelines for waste management for onsite construction and renovation works.

ESCAP has established an accurate waste monitoring system at the HQ compound in Bangkok. Waste is recorded and sorted by type and building floor daily. In 2021, ESCAP HQ recycled about 80% of all waste (78% including regional offices).  ESCAP’s work on waste started in 2017, when the emphasis was put on food waste prevention and biomass based food containers and then expanded to a comprehensive waste management and prevention strategy developed by the EMS.

Since then, ESCAP has been displaying daily food waste quantities at the cafeteria entrance to sensitize staff on the need for reduced food waste and the impact of daily food choices. In 2018, the focus was shifted to preventing waste from catering operations.  Over a 6-month period ESCAP phased out paper cups, plastic containers, plastic straws, plastic bags, thin film plastics, and plastic bottles offering reusable options to staff and visitors.

The initiative goes beyond plastics, targeting all unnecessary single-use items used for catering operations, and helps to save up to 9 tons of mixed waste annually. 

In 2020, ESCAP started composting all its organic waste by sending it to local NGOs for reuse as compost and animal feed. Centralized waste recycling stations were installed in all work areas and replaced individual bins under staff desks. These are helping the organization prevent waste contamination, recycle more, and raise staff awareness of the need to segregate and reduce waste. ESCAP found recycling options for almost all its waste categories and exceeded its initial target of 50% recycling for 2022 in 2020.

Besides catering waste, ESCAP is also targeting construction waste by including waste management and prevention requirements in our construction projects and reporting its annual construction waste to GtB.

WATER AND WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT

ESCAP tracks and reports its water consumption daily, monthly and annually. Water meters are installed, as well as submeters to measure the cooling towers’ usage. Based on the information collected, strategies were implemented to reduce the water usage, especially regarding the HVAC system (Cooling towers account for 51% of ESCAP water consumption). HVAC operating hours were reduced, materials upgraded, reducing the amount of water used by 60% in five years. Reduced office occupancy contributed to the extensive reduction in water consumption in 2021, beyond the initial EMS target of 30%.  Wastewater is collected and treated before reuse for gardening purposes. ESCAP wastewater quality is regularly tested by specialised contractors to ensure compliance with local regulations and prevent any harm to the environment.

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES

ESCAP developed a methodology to calculate its meeting emissions which covers all emissions from travel, accommodation, venue, food, waste and local transport. The goal is to monitor the trends in meeting emissions in ESCAP and implement effective emission reduction strategies, while raising awareness among UN staff and meeting participants. In collaboration with UNEP, emphasis is being put into proposing more sustainable menus for events and greening the compound’s catering operations. An Earth Hour Campaign is implemented daily at ESCAP Compound, switching off office lights during the lunch break. This is estimated to save up to 90 tons of CO2 in a year and raise staff awareness. Additionally, photocopiers and printers have been replaced with multifunction network printers to improve paper use monitoring and reduce paper consumption.

NEXT STEPS

ESCAP has just started its 2nd EMS cycle. The first one focused on establishing an EMS for ESCAP HQ and the entire UN Compound. In this new cycle, ESCAP is committed to expanding the EMS to its regional offices and to the programmatic work while continuing its implementation at the HQ.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

    World Environment Day 2022 - UN Bangkok Quiz Contest - YouTube

    Sustainability at ESCAP

    Recycling video (2020)

    Cycling to work video (2019) 

    Single-use waste video (2018)

    RECENT NEWS AND STORIES 

    One-UN Quiz Contest Celebrate World Environment Day 2021 - 10 December 2021