Environmental management in a peacebuilding mission of the United Nations

• Autor(a) principal: Ribeiro, Nicole Quinta Fernandes
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/30806
• topic: Environmental management; Performance; Energy; Water; Waste; Peacebuilding mission; Professional experience

A wide range of drivers, approaches and situational factors influence environmental management, which is also highly interlinked with the economic and social dimension. Moreover, to achieve sustainable ambitions it is imperative to establish collaborative partnerships and/or alliances between stakeholders. The present report describes my contribution - as an environment and sustainable professional - towards the protection of the environment and my effort to maintain natural capital productive and resilient to support human life in two completely different contexts, viz. in an enterprise and in a peacebuilding mission. This dissertation aims to provide an insight on how a peacebuilding mission can progress in the adoption of the UN’s environment strategy and improve its environmental performance, namely in the pillars of energy, water & wastewater and solid waste. UNAMA, the peacebuilding mission used as a case study, has been working on its environmental footprint for several years, and has demonstrated a positive progress, reaching a 100% compliance for the wider impact pillar as well as very closely achieving the same for the EMS pillar. Energy, water & wastewater, and solid waste pillars are the areas which report a greater opportunity for improvement. Furthermore, the description of my professional experience also highlights how the environment dimension can be incorporated in an organization’s management, despite its sector or core business. In more general terms, the incorporation of sustainable (health, safety, environment and social) criteria can influence the success in any organization whichever its activity may be. Considering my background and professional experience I believe that sustainable criteria require a rigorous and technical input to provide accurate information on potential risk, opportunity and cost benefit analysis to support the decision-making process. Based on these inputs, top managers are required to take informed decisions in the present, as if they would be accountable for managing the consequences in the future. This should be the baseline to ensure any organization’s legacy and accountability through its life cycle, with the ultimate goal to lead by example in terms of environment and social governance.