Materials & Supply Chain

Materials & Supply Chain

Understanding and managing the supply chain associated with a organization’s key products and services offers the opportunity to manage risk and reduce environmental impacts.

Materials & Supply Chain

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Understanding the impacts of material extraction, processing and disposal, as well as managing the supply chain associated with a humanitarian organization’s key products and services offers the opportunity to manage risk and reduce environmental impacts.

The goal of sustainable supply chain management is to extend the environmental and social responsibility within the supply chain. Environmental impacts associated with goods and products include hazardous waste, water pollution, biodiversity loss, deforestation, ecosystem damage, hazardous air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.

To address these impacts organizations must collaborate with their suppliers, communicating minimum expectations and monitoring compliance. Supply chain management is not only about environmental management, but also about social safeguards. The United Nations Global Compact ten universally accepted principles of supply chain sustainability cover human and labour rights, environmental protection and anti-corruption.

Sustainable supply chain management is an ongoing process. A good starting point is dialogue and collaboration with suppliers and sub-suppliers on continuous improvements. The following steps can be taken:

The following activities can be undertaken to minimize environmental footprints related to different parameters:

Energy

Materials

Water

Chemicals

Other factors

Resources

Policy Document

Model Approach to Environmental and Social Standards in UN Programming

Robust social and environmental standards and related accountability mechanisms are increasingly applied as best practice in a broad range of international programming and investments for sustainable development. In practical terms such standards aim to ensure that development and humanitarian actors are held to the principles they proclaim,…

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Guideline

Sphere Handbook Shelter Standards

The Sphere Minimum Standards for shelter and settlements are a practical expression of the right to shelter in humanitarian contexts. The standards are grounded in the beliefs, principles, duties and rights declared in the Humanitarian Charter. These include the right to life with dignity, the right to protection and security,…

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Guideline

Green building material selection and use guide

Practical guidelines for environmentally responsible selection, sourcing, use and disposal of construction material.

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Guideline

Global Shelter Cluster: Identifying Critical Environmental Considerations in Shelter Site Selection, Construction, Management and Decommissioning

This checklist provides emergency shelter project managers a means to quickly assess shelter-related environmental impacts and identify practical actions to address these impacts.

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Guideline

Shelter Sector Environmental Guidelines

This document focuses on housing reconstruction after natural hazard events that must be carried out in highly difficult circumstances and there are expectations to be operational very quickly. Its purpose is (1) to convey the full range of environmental and environmental health issues associated with housing construction, and (2) to…

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Policy Document

Sphere Handbook Food Security Standards

The Sphere Minimum Standards for food security and nutrition are a practical expression of the right to adequate food in humanitarian contexts. The standards are grounded in the beliefs, principles, duties and rights declared in the Humanitarian Charter, including the rights to life with dignity, protection, security, and the right…

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Guideline

Logistics Operational Guide – Green Logistics guidance

The guide introduces logisticians to green logistics, encouraging them to think in "green" terms and highlighting the challenges and advantages. The site provides guidance on environmental best practice for the logistics cluster.

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Report / Study

Sustainable Logistics – Best Practices from the Global Compact

The document summarizes best sustainable logistics practices from the ten largest logistics companies and from other transportation businesses that have committed to the Global Compact principles.

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Training Material

Green Guide to Materials and the Supply Chain

This training module is concerned with construction materials and procurement. It describes how to use fewer materials, how to use local sources of materials in a sustainable way, and the use of disaster debris and recycled items as building material.

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Report / Study

Harmful Impacts of Mining

“Minerals and metals play a central role in the global economy and mining is an important source of economic development in many countries. However, the harmful effects of mining remain a challenge for society to acknowledge and address.” (RMF, 2021: 4) The new report from the Responsible Mining Foundation…

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Guideline

Environment Marker Sector Guidance

This guidance accompanies the Environment Marker, and aims at giving specific guidance on mitigation measures for activities in “B”-coded projects (medium environmental impact). It provides additional sector-specific guidance, using the example of Sudan.

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Report / Study

Sustainability in Humanitarian Supply Chain – A Preliminary Scoping of Improvements in Packaging

This preliminary scoping study, led by USAID's BHA in collaboration with a technical advisory group of humanitarian assistance stakeholders, is based on consultations with forty-seven organizations across the humanitarian, environmental, academic, and private sectors and provides a preliminary analysis of the environmental risks and challenges related to humanitarian packaging,…

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Report / Study

Study report on HI’s environmental practices

Groupe URD conducted a study on the environmental practices of the international organisation,with funding from the Humanitarian Environment Network in 2019. Despite the environmental and climate emergency, which predominantly affects countries where humanitarian operations take place, these issues are still not taken into account properly in aid organisations practices and…

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Tool

ICLEI – Sustainable Procurement Platform

The Sustainable Procurement Platform is a resource center that provides tools and guidelines for sustainable procurement efforts managed by the ICLEI. The platform offers assistance for public and private sector organisations to implement sustainable, innovative, circular or strategic procurement.

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Tool

HLCM Procurement Network – Greening the Blue

Greening the Blue is a resource center for sustainable procurement action providing information and guidelines on procurement efforts in the UN, created by the HLCM Procurement Network.The resource center offers assistance to procurers and requisitioners regarding sustainable procurement. T…

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Communication Material

Disaster Rebuilding: Environmentally Responsible Design Principles

Principles for environmentally responsible disaster recovery and reconstruction, developed by the World Wide Fund for Nature Environment and Disaster Management Program.

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Guideline

Timber as a construction material in humanitarian operations

Guidance for using timber as a construction material in humanitarian response.

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Case Study

Shelter Cluster Sustainable Shelter Solutions pilots

Sustainable shelter solutions applied in the Somalia Crisis…

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Guideline

UNEP: Key Things to Know About Environment as “Cross Cutting” Issue in Early Recovery

This brief UN Environment note provides an overview of key environmental considerations for early recovery actors, including a short cluster-specific checklist.

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Tool

UN Habitat: SHERPA for Sustainable Housing Projects

UN Habitat SHERPA is an easy to use self-evaluation tool for actors involved in the planning, design, construction and assessment of housing projects. SHERPA assesses housing projects, helping to improve sustainability across site selection, the design process, as well as the life cycle and recyclability of building materials used.

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