Annual report

Strategic Priorities
| Climate and environment 
79

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The IFRC understands that the network can only 
support communities placed at risk from climate 
change if it mitigates its own impact on the 
environment. In 2022, the IFRC introduced new 
systems, research and approaches to reduce 
its environmental footprint and greenhouse 
gas emissions, “green” our operations and pro-
gramming, and supported National Societies to 
become greener organizations.
The 2022 Council of Delegates passed a reso-
lution endorsing the Climate and Environment 
Charter for Humanitarian Organizations, which 
was co-launched by the IFRC and ICRC the 
previous year. In 2022, the number of National 
Societies signatory to the charter reached 128. 
All were supported by the IFRC in developing, 
implementing, and monitoring targets to boost 
locally led, climate-smart action on the ground, 
and reducing our collective environmental foot-
print. In 2022, the charter attracted 335 overall 
signatories, and 11 state supporters.
The IFRC and National Societies have committed 
to the following targets in the charter:
•
250 million people are reached with 
activities to address rising climate risks.
•
100 National Societies have formulated 
explicit ambitions to address the rising 
climate and environmental risks in their 
operational plans.
•
80 National Societies are engaged in 
anticipatory action.
The IFRC and National Societies were closely 
involved in an inter-agency project that created 
the 
Humanitarian Carbon Calculator
, which 
was launched in 2022 and made available on 
the charter website. Organizations can use 
this calculator to assess the direct and indi-
rect greenhouse gas emissions associated with 
their activities, which allows for reduction targets 
to be set and emission reduction plans put in 
place. The calculator can also be used to moni-
tor the evolution of an organization’s emissions 
over time, thereby assessing the effectiveness of 
efforts to reduce emissions.
Also in 2022, the 
Green Response: Environmental 
Quick Guide
and the IFRC 
Environmental Policy 
Toolkit
were launched to improve National 
Societies’ environmental sustainability.
Green Response is an initiative that actively 
promotes the systematic integration of envi-
ronmental sustainability in the IFRC network’s 
humanitarian activities – building a culture of 
“saving lives and reducing suffering without risk-
ing damage to the environment or the livelihoods, 
assets, health and survival of affected people”. 
The new toolkit was completed under the ECHO 
PPP inception phase and is the first comprehen-
sive practical guide for National Societies on how 
to improve their environmental sustainability, 
ranging from internal actions to logistics, pro-
gramming, and sectoral interventions.
The Environmental Policy Toolkit consists of a 
model environmental policy, guidance for pol-
icy content and policy process, and suggested 
implementation tools. These will guide National 
Societies in developing their own environmental 
policies in support of their commitment to the 
Climate and Environment Charter.
Under the ECHO-funded greening the shelter 
sector project, IFRC and partners worked to 
help support shelter coordinators and country 
cluster partners to implement effective, greener 
and more climate-smart operations. Activities 
in 2022 included a review of the environmental 
property specifications of the 12 most-used 
emergency catalogue items; integration of 
environmental sustainability into IFRC oper-
ations, and advances in the use of the Nexus 
Environmental Assessment Tool (NEAT+), which 
identifies environmental risks in operations 
and programmes.
The organization also became a formal member 
of the inter-agency Environment in Humanitarian 
Action Network, which is led by UNOCHA/UNEP 
and aims to better integrate environmental con-
cerns into the work of the humanitarian sector.
During the 77th UN General Assembly, the 
IFRC focused on positioning its climate-related 
work, and the work of its National Societies, in