Photo: UNDP Yemen.
UNDP is committed to being green, sustainable, and just. As a global leader in the fight against climate change, UNDP has been climate neutral in its global operations since 2015. But offsetting is not enough; to stay within a 1.5°C increase in global temperature – which is needed to avoid the catastrophic impact of climate change – greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be halved by 2030 and be reduced to net-zero by 2050.
Based on this requirement and aligning itself with the UN’s Strategy for sustainability management 2020–2030, UNDP leads on climate action by example. In August 2019, UNDP matched its commitment to supporting countries on raising climate ambition through their national climate pledges (i.e., the “Climate Promise”), with its own pledge for greater ambition. UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner launched the Greening Moonshot, committing the Organization to:
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Reduce GHG emissions from UNDP operations 25% by 2025 and 50% by 2030
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Implement the best waste management in all UNDP premises
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Minimize the use of resources.
Every day, UNDP staff around the world are implementing innovative solutions to achieve the ambitious Moonshot Commitment. UNDP vehicle fleets are converting to electric or hybrid cars where feasible and safe, improving local air quality and further reducing their carbon footprint. Also, by moving to cloud-computing and compact energy solutions to replace local data centers, UNDP has reduced its ICT carbon footprint by 75% and expanded virtual collaboration infrastructure. UNDP is fully leveraging the experience from the COVID-19 pandemic to build forward better by utilizing virtual means of communication to reduce its travel footprint. Through the Moonshot Facility and Regional Bureau Greening Funds, UNDP invests in green energy and energy efficiency measures throughout its over 140 offices – increasing operational resilience, saving costs, and improving the health and well-being of all staff and communities served.
Moonshot Facility - Transitioning to low carbon operations, office by office, piece- by- piece
Building on years of advancing environmental management throughout UNDP operations, in 2019, the Moonshot Facility was set up to replicate and scale proven solutions as well as support green innovation to help meet the Moonshot Targets. This corporate facility, in coordination with other internal funds and funding, incentivizes contribution to the targets on a competitive basis.
In its first two years, UNDP’s Moonshot initiative invested $3.2 million from corporate, regional and country offices to fund 36 projects, mainly focusing on PV and energy-efficiency, and jointly expected to result in a reduction of 1,575 tonnes CO2e and $601,888 in energy costs savings per year.
By making substantial progress in reducing GHG emissions from its top three GHG sources – air travel, facility energy use and vehicle fuel use – UNDP is well on its way towards achieving its ambitious Moonshot Targets!
“We cannot advise over 140 countries on raising their ambitions to reach the Sustainable Development Goals without doing so ourselves”
- Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.