International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

www.itu.int

HQ: Geneva, Switzerland

Focal Point: Robin Zuercher / Victoria Sukenik

Email: [email protected]

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.

SECRETARY GENERAL'S QUOTE

“ITU Member States have put sustainable digital transformation on an equal footing with universal connectivity. For the digital future of humanity rests on our ability to effectively protect our planet and all the life within it. As the UN agency for digital technologies, ITU will lead by example, taking responsibility to address its own carbon footprint – in line with the UN Sustainability Strategy 2020-2030, and in cooperation with the Greening the Blue community.”

Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General, ITU

MISSION

ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information & communication technologies. Founded in 1865, ITU allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strives to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide. 

ITU also plays a leading role in developing an integrated approach to the relation between ICTs and climate change, focusing on monitoring, adaptation and mitigation. ITU works closely with its membership - including 193 Member States and more than 900 companies, universities, and international and regional organizations - to lead efforts to achieve a climate neutral ICT industry and to promote sustainable development using ICTs.

ITU’s work in climate change relates to adaptation, emergency telecommunications, monitoring and mitigation through the adoption of standards for more energy-efficient ICT services and products, and to reduce e-waste. The Union allocates and protects radio spectrum for environmental monitoring and promotes ICT applications for e-environment and sustainable development. Work in emergency telecommunications for disaster mitigation and relief is a vital component of efforts in adaptation. 

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

Through the ‘ITU Environmental Sustainability Statement’ ITU adopted a series of guiding principles to step up and act on internal sustainability ambitions. 

In early 2020 ITU started to implement an Environmental Management System (EMS), with the aim to establish a coherent approach towards sustainability management across the organization and systematically integrate environmental sustainability long-term into ITU’s internal practices. In the context of the EMS, ITU developed an EMS Targets and Action Plan 2020-2030, with reduction targets and activities, aligned with the objectives and commitments of the Strategy for Sustainability Management in the United Nations System 2020–2030. 

In 2022, ITU adopted the ‘ITU Environmental Sustainability Policy’. 

EMISSIONS REDUCTION

ITU’s purchased electricity for HQ use is from 100% renewable resources and several efforts have been made for at least 2 decades in the field of reducing energy consumption. A large part of the ITU HQ premises has been renovated to limit electrical consumption and the various solutions resulted in more than 25% (1,5 GWh) less energy consumption in the HQ within the past 8 years.

EMS AND REDUCTION EFFORTS

Through the ‘ITU Environmental Sustainability Statement’ ITU adopted a series of guiding principles to step up and act on internal sustainability ambitions.

In early 2020 ITU started to implement an Environmental Management System (EMS), with the aim to establish a coherent approach towards sustainability management across the organization and systematically integrate environmental sustainability long-term into ITU’s internal practices. In the context of the EMS, ITU, defined targets and activities aligned with the Strategy for Sustainability Management in the United Nations System 2020–2030.

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, ITU’s progress on the EMS is rated as: Approaches.

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

ITU EMS Targets and Action Plan 2020-2030 considers a semi-yearly management Review to monitor progress.

The Action Plan also includes the following targets related to the organizations’ Human Resources Strategy: 

  • By 2022, all recruitment and selection processes give adequate weightage to environmental sustainability understanding and behaviours.
  • By 2022, all staff incorporate environmental sustainability understanding and behaviours in their e-PMDS.         

For the 2022 reporting year, ITU’s status of implementing environmental and social safeguards and standards in their policies, projects and programmes is: No.

ENVIRONMENTAL TRAINING FOR PERSONNEL

ITU EMS Targets and Action Plan 2020-2030 includes as a target, that:

  • By 2023, all staff are trained on environmental sustainability.

Also the ‘Greening the Blue Training’ is available for all staff in the ITU Performance and Learning Portal, as a mandatory training, and the update of new mandatory trainings is in process.

For the 2022 reporting year, ITU’s status on providing training on environmental sustainability is Yes, it is mandatory for staff only.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT PLANS (IMPs)

ITU’s operational emissions are measured and presented according to an UN-approved format. Air travel includes all mission flights issued by ITU’s travel section, as well as an estimate for entitlement travel.

Where data is not available for Regional and Area Offices, hosting up to 11 staff members, proxies are used, and data quality is continuously improved. The “staff” complement also includes the "full-time equivalent" complement of all non-staff persons managed by ITU.

OFFSETTING

ITU is offsetting its residual operational emissions as of the year 2015 via the purchase of Certified Emission Reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism, and is also contributing to the associated Adaptation Fund. ITU has thus declared itself as Climate Neutral in its operations as from 1 January 2015: according to an organizational boundary and via best-practice offset projects compatible with UN standards, in collaboration with UN experts. 

WASTE MANAGEMENT

In an effort to improve waste management at ITU HQ, waste recycling stations have been put in place. They collect paper, plastic bottles and non-recyclable waste and can be found centrally on every floor to reduce the amount of unsorted waste from individual office bins.

PAPER

In recent years, many paper processes have been digitized. and there is also no longer paper wasted from publications as quantities are only printed on request. In addition, ITU has implemented various steps towards paper free conferences, this has led to three of the largest ITU conferences, organized in 2022, being virtually paper-smart.

SINGLE-USE PLASTIC

While ITU reduces the use of plastic bottles via water dispensers, since 2020 also plastic cups provided next to the dispensers were removed from staff floors and one free reusable water bottle was provider to all staff members to kick-off ITU’s single-plastic free journey.

Single-use plastic has also been reduced through several initiatives with the ITU HQ catering provider. As such, plastic cups are replaced with glasses during key lunch hours and the amount of disposable food containers has been reduced by offering reusable containers from ReCircle.

WATER AND WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT

In the ITU HQ buildings pressure reducers were installed across the entire network, and automatic taps have been fitted in the Montbrillant building toilets. These cut water use by 50 per cent compared with push taps. 

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES

EVENTS & CONFERENCES

ITU is one of the leading UN agencies in the field of virtual meetings/remote participation and many sister-agencies approach ITU to learn and replicate a similar approach in their agencies. 

Activities that were undertaken in recent years to strengthen remote participation: 

  • ITU was one of the first agencies to provide Multilingual Interactive Remote Participation (MIRP) service back in 2010 
  • Between 2017-2020, ITU has worked closely with third parties and through RFPs to customize platforms that meet ITU’s needs in terms of MIRP 
  • Continuously modernizing meeting rooms to improve the level of MIRP 
  • Meeting rooms have been or are being equipped with tracking cameras. This increases the interactivity of remote participants 
  • Live captioning has been integrated in the virtual room whenever it is provided 
  • Fixed setup in all meeting rooms, making it easier for those who want to run the service without many technical challenges 
  • Continuously adapting MIRP platforms to match ITU’s needs in terms of accessibility, security, registration, and authentication.

In addition, for physical events first greening efforts were undertaken for PP18 and ITU Telecom World 2019.  In 2022, all ITU’s major conferences included information on event sustainability (e.g. see PP-22 website).

NEXT STEPS

In 2023, the review of the ITU EMS Targets and Action Plan 2020-2030 started with the aim to assess its progress and improve the targets' accuracy, whenever needed. 

ADDITIONAL LINKS 

https://www.itu.int/en/action/environment-and-climate-change/Pages/default.aspx