Share & more
It’s a “crunch moment” for the humanitarian sector’s approach to doing its bit for the climate crisis. That’s the view of Bruno Jochum, founder and executive director of the Climate Action Accelerator, a group working with humanitarian organisations to turn their green commitments into action.
With climate impacts rising, the UN and many in the wider aid system have called for strong measures to reduce global warming and lessen the impacts of environmental disasters. But humanitarians have been less forthcoming when faced with turning moral leadership into demonstrating decarbonising themselves.
It’s a difficult time for the Accelerator’s mission. Waves of donor cutbacks have engulfed the aid sector in a financial crisis, and sparked the humanitarian reset, a wide-ranging reform programme led by the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA. This has been accompanied by attacks from President Donald Trump and his US administration on climate policies that have caused a chilling effect – to the extent that many humanitarian groups have scrubbed greening language from their websites.
“We have, on one hand, over the last few years, a lot of institutional commitments, ambitions being laid out at political level,” said Jochum. “The whole question is still, how can this be operationalised in the current context?”
The UN has a particular responsibility, because of the amount of money it controls, said Jochum, adding, because of “the way they design their own action and fund other organisations, they can have a real impact over years”.
“What we invite the systemic actors to do is help with the transformation of their partners and to actually integrate in their own programming,” he said. While acknowledging the many urgent problems confronting humanitarians, Jochum flagged a need for “strategic continuity on what is one of the biggest challenges for humanity in the decades to come”.
“Efficiency, the interest of populations, interest of the climate and environment all go together.”
For Jochum, ongoing reform efforts like the humanitarian reset should present an opportunity not a hindrance.
“We strongly believe that there is momentum to accelerate the deployment of solutions within the constraints that the sector faces,” he said, adding that it doesn’t need to cost the Earth: “Efficiency, the interest of populations, interest of the climate and environment all go together.”
In the fuller interview below – edited for length and clarity – he tells The New Humanitarian how that works.
The New Humanitarian: Is the humanitarian reset green, as indicated in its roadmap?
Bruno Jochum: Climate and environment is part of the ambition stated for the humanitarian reset. How far it will go beyond simply stating that is the big question.
As of today, it's still unclear what the outcome of the reset is, beyond a few key statements. And when it comes to the greening aspect, beyond a very general ambition which has been included, it's hard to see the pathway towards greater operationalisation.
What we see [amid the funding and political challenges] is there's been a kind of relegation, or, less attention taken to climate commitments. In day-to-day arbitrations, they tend to be a bit pushed back because, basically, it's less seen as an immediate crisis than something important to deal with in the future.
But we think it’s the time to make certain hard choices.
We've identified a pathway for organisations to take decisions and act on levers which are beneficial for populations, are financially neutral or save money, and which have a major climate and environmental impact.
The New Humanitarian: What does it look like?
Jochum: There are three big areas for humanitarian organisations to curb emissions.
The first is energy systems and buildings.
This is an area where the technology exists (mainly solar and wind), the know-how exists, and the return on investment is getting faster and faster.
It's basically about deploying renewable energy systems by default, rather than classic fuel generators used in off-grid settings, which are noisy, polluting, and expensive – though they can of course be kept for backup.
Usually, within somewhere between two and four years, you already have a return on investment – so renewable systems are suitable for protracted humanitarian crises lasting many years. This should become mainstream.
Decarbonising shouldn't come with big dilemmas. It's about mainstreaming it into operations.
Local NGOs in the Sahel or other unstable settings say they want renewable energy because it's cheaper and they don't have to rely on fuel supply lines and deal with associated volatility.
That's why decarbonising shouldn't come with big dilemmas. It's about mainstreaming it into operations.
It also means rehabilitating buildings in a proper way to make sure you have proper heating and cooling, which is usually better for patients and staff. There’s infrastructure measures – some based on traditional methods – to cool down places like, white roofs, different materials that don't capture heat, and installing ventilation. There are many ways of doing it.
The second is transport.
Transport is quite different: It’s less about technology than moderation. Specifically, moderating flying.
Until the explosion of low-cost flights, the humanitarian sector used to be relatively careful with flying because of the cost. Now, people go around the world for just one-day meetings, conferences, training, internal coordination. There are HR policies based on frequent flying.
But with today's climate crisis, organisations should restrict flying to what is actually necessary for the mission. They should basically deconstruct the need and look at alternative ways of working.
Localisation comes into this. The more you collaborate and you reinforce local response capacity, the less you're going to need these constant flights.
This is almost purely a cost-saving measure, because basically what you do is buy less tickets. For UN agencies especially, you can curb down significantly on business class tickets.
These are policy decisions that have no impact on beneficiaries. And between now and 2030 it is absolutely possible to curb down travel emissions probably by half.
There are absolutely legitimate reasons to use air travel – freight is also transport, and may be needed for sudden emergencies or security reasons. The question is using air freight beyond the emergency phase when there are other options (for example, MSF France now prioritises maritime transport over plane).
The third is humanitarian goods and supply chains.
This is actually the biggest driver of emissions. These are obviously necessary to provide assistance to populations that need them. So here, the question is not about weakening assistance to populations – we're not talking about providing less, or less quality. It's about how to orient the demand for products towards suppliers that are themselves using decarbonised energy sources for the same product.
Why would you absolutely want to buy a product which has been made with coal power versus, for example, hydro-electricity or solar or even nuclear power? Here, organisations have choices. It’s also possible to orient demand for products to companies who have taken strong climate and environment commitments.
For the products themselves, the question is, can you use alternative products for the same use? Different materials are less polluting or simply have better impacts on the environment.
For example, blankets, which are widely distributed to displaced people. You can find blankets which are better quality, use less plastic, and cost less. Other common items are tarpaulin, jerry cans, and hygiene kits.
Some food assistance can also have a much higher emission footprint than others. Rice has traditionally been quite high in humanitarian distributions but, depending on how it's produced, can have 60% less emissions.
It's a question of how to promote specifications of products, which go in the interest of both the beneficiary, the organisation, and climate and environment.
The New Humanitarian: That all sounds complicated…
Jochum: It's heavy work that needs to take place. This does not come from one day to another. We shouldn't pretend it's easy.
But there can be mutualisations of knowledge and technical know-how here that can be useful for the whole sector.
Organisations usually buy thousands of products, but when you analyse their impacts, you can see often that just a few dozen of products make, you know, 80 or 90% of the impact.
So what this means is you don't need to concentrate on 10,000 products. You can basically focus on, you know, 20, 30, 40, products, and make a huge difference.
The analysis of what should be the criteria that could be used in procurement for these top items – all of this could be done well for the greater good of everybody. I mean, you don't need every organisation to repeat it all the time.
The New Humanitarian: How would you make this case to leaders who are worried about getting their organisations through the next few months?
Jochum: We tell them, in the next few months and or in the next two years, we shall underestimate what's happening with the climate crisis. We then focus on those solutions that have beneficial impacts and which lead to cost savings or which are financially neutral.
A study we did in 2024 found 60-70% of the effort on decarbonisation can be done at no cost or with savings, mainly because of transport. With energy, you need the financial liquidity at the beginning for the investment, but you have a return on investment relatively quickly, like two or three years.
What is more difficult today – and this is where I would appeal to the leadership of organisations – dedicating time to the issue.
The lack of time and bandwidth creates a situation where they can't even go through the understanding that you can act while not having negative impacts on their organisation. This demands bandwidth, and we believe that it's time to mutualise or share some of the investments which are needed that can help everybody here.
Edited by Andrew Gully.
