We are committed to reducing our own impact and to supporting our partners and peers, both in the humanitarian sector and the corporate world, as they reduce their environmental impact and find innovative ways to safeguard the environment through their work.
The Climate and Environment Charter
We’re thrilled to announce that in 2023 we became a signatory of The Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organisations.
This is a series of seven commitments that all humanitarian organisations are invited to make towards fighting climate change and supporting affected communities.
The seven commitments are as follows:
- Step up our response to growing humanitarian needs and help people adapt to the impacts of the climate and environmental crises.
- Maximise the environmental sustainability of our work, and rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
- Embrace the leadership of local actors and communities.
- Increase our capacity to understand climate and environmental risks and develop evidence-based solutions
- Work collaboratively across the humanitarian sector and beyond to strengthen climate and environmental action
- Use our influence to mobilise urgent and more ambitious climate action and environmental protection
- Develop targets and measure our progress as we implement our commitments.
Our commitment to the Charter has been signed off by our Board of Trustees. Having signed the Charter and in tandem with our existing Climate Change strategy, we are working with our staff team, and external partners to take the next steps towards net-zero, sustainable support for disaster-affected communities.
A Climate-Oriented Perspective
Humanitarian organisations play a crucial role in addressing the climate crisis. Climate change creates and exacerbates political, health, and equality crises, layering complexity in existing disaster contexts. It disproportionately affects vulnerable populations.
As such, climate change is not an isolated issue, but deeply woven into all the challenges we seek to overcome in disaster response. Fighting climate change forms one of our three thematic focus areas. Alongside our core programming on climate change response, furthermore, we are committed to embedding a climate-sensitive perspective in all of our learning and development services.
Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction is our flagship climate response programme. Generously funded by AXA XL since 2019, CCADRR equips practitioners from East Africa and South and Southeast Asia to find innovative, contextualised solutions, adapting to the impacts of climate change in their local contexts and reducing the risks of climate-induced disaster.
Our Climate Change Strategy outlines our intentions to expand our work in this area, ensuring that we can offer the expertise that the humanitarian sector needs.
Our Green Credentials
We’re proud of our current achievements in reducing our environmental impact:
- Online training: Much of our learning and development facilitated by our global pool of trainers takes place online, reducing the need for carbon-releasing travel from trainers and participants.
- Paperless: our hybrid working model means that our administration uses digital tools rather than paper.
- Partnership: our partnership with Arup, who host RedR UK in their office space, means that we partner with them in reducing the environmental impact of their venue.
Our next steps
There is still much to be done, however. While our aspiration is to reach net zero, here are some small steps we are keen to make:
- We can use recycled paper for our printed publicity.
- We can hire venues for in-person training based on their sustainability credentials.
- We can calculate the carbon used to power our website and measure our digital footprint, taking steps to make change.
In line with our values, we are committed to implementing and communicating steps towards more sustainable practices, using our influence and capacity to create change.