United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

SECRETARY-GENERAL'S MESSAGE

“Today more than ever, we all need to move in a new direction towards greater equality, sustainability and economic resilience. In UNCTAD we are convinced that trade, investment, finance and technology must drive inclusive and sustainable development for all.”

Ms. Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of UNCTAD

MISSION

UNCTAD supports developing countries to access the benefits of a globalized economy more fairly and effectively. And we help equip them to deal with the potential drawbacks of greater economic integration. To do this, we provide analysis, facilitate consensus-building, and offer technical assistance. This helps them to use trade, investment, finance, and technology as vehicles for inclusive and sustainable development.

With climate change and environmental degradation becoming ever more challenges to countries and societies across the globe, climate issues have been increasingly integrated in UNCTADS's work (as also reflected in the Bridgetown Covenant – UNCTAD’s quadrennial conference outcome document). Analytical work, consensus building and technical cooperation in support of a green transition feature prominently on UNCTAD's website as well as in UNCTAD's social media channels. UNCTAD's engagement at the annual COP has now a dedicated website to feed the global dialogue and position our message.

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

UNCTAD is a non-resident agency that is co-located at the Palais des Nations and all its operations are managed by UNOG.

This includes UNOG’s emissions offsetting, waste and water management, energy efficiency, sustainable cafeterias, park management, and others.

At entity level, we have found several ways to become more sustainable. With respect to printers, we have eliminated all 400 printers in the organization and replaced with network printers.

We also replaced most desktop computers throughout UNCTAD with laptops. This has resulted in more flexibility for us to telecommute, which has now become a common practice within the organization. It also created an enabling environment in which we have digitized most of our files and workflows, eliminating the need for most paper documents.

UNCTAD continues to utilize its learning from the pandemic to host and engage in virtual and hybrid events as appropriate. This reduces carbon emissions due to less travel and the need for paper documents.

We purchase annual carbon offsets for our limited travel.

OFFSETTING

UNCTAD is committed to ensuring only limited and necessary travel where that particular activity cannot be undertaken virtually. To this end, in those cases where travel does take place, UNCTAD purchases carbon offsets to ensure it is aligned with the organization’s mission with regard to the environment. For 2021 and 2022, UNCTAD purchased 5,300 carbon offsets through the UNFCCC.

EXPERIENCE SO FAR

UNCTAD was one of the first UN agencies to proactively tackle this issue, having completed its first annual greenhouse gas inventory in 2006, and having launched its own mitigation strategy, the UNCTAD Climate Neutral Programme, in 2007. Those experiences helped UNCTAD monitor its greenhouse gas emissions in an effective and systematic manner, understand the climate impacts of its operations, and ultimately, develop and coordinate actions at UNCTAD and with partners to reduce emissions and organize the purchase of carbon offsets to neutralize unavoidable emissions.

REDUCTION EFFORTS

Reduction efforts at UNCTAD concentrate on the following areas:

• Air travel reduction and emissions offsetting
• Organization of low-carbon conferences
• Energy efficiency partnership with UNOG

Emission Reduction, EMS and Reduction Efforts, Inventory Management Plans (IMPs), Waste Management, Waste and Wastewater management

These activities are managed by UNOG, since UNCTAD is a non-resident agency co-located at the Palais des Nations. Therefore, the data for UNCTAD is subsumed under the data for UNOG.