While working with our members to leverage digital technologies to monitor, mitigate and adapt to climate change, ITU is also addressing climate change from within. This is in line with UN-wide commitments to ‘walk the talk’ and systematically integrate sustainability across its operations.
Measure Reduce Offset
ITU conducts a yearly greenhouse gas inventory and has been climate neutral in its operations since 2015 by offsetting its residual operational emissions via the purchase of Certified Emission Reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism.
Reducing negative environmental impacts is an ongoing effort and several actions have been undertaken throughout the past years including digitizing paper processes, virtualizing ICT servers, and strengthening virtual meetings and remote participation capabilities.
Environmental Management System
Through the ‘ITU Environmental Sustainability Statement’ in 2020, ITU adopted a series of guiding principles to step-up and act on internal sustainability ambitions. In line with the first
UN Strategy for Environmental Sustainability 2020-2030, ITU’s Statement also commits to establishing an Environmental Management System to systematically integrate “sustainability” across its operations and to support the continual improvement of the Union’s environmental performance.
Greening the Blue
ITU is also supported by Greening the Blue, a UN-wide initiative assisting the UN System in the transition to integrate environmental considerations into decisions and concrete actions.
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2050Today
2050Today brings together permanent missions, UN institutions and other entities of international Geneva for collective climate action through sharing experiences, solutions and practices.
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Assessment of buildings
The ITU Headquarters’ purchased electricity is derived solely from renewable sources. Additionally, the ITU Headquarters (HQ) employs innovative building cooling systems, using water from the local Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). While a large part of the ITU HQ premises has been renovated to limit electrical consumption, the current focus lies on the preparations for the new headquarters building, which begins construction towards beginning-2023. The new building will be linked to the SIG GeniLac network, while engaging in the recycling of heat from data centres and promoting the use of solar panels on the roof to enhance the sustainability of the overall construction. |
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See more information about the new building project
here.
