The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC) aim to provide minimum criteria for certification schemes and voluntary standards on sustainable tourism. Developed by the Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism, the criteria cover 4 aspects:
The Global e-Sustainability Initiative is a voluntary industry led initiative that brings together 32 industry partners to address sustainability in the ICT sector.
Launched in 2001 in partnership with UNEP, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative has 5 main areas of work:
Reducing Emissions from forest Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) is a policy measure designed to stop forest damage by placing an economic value on forests remaining intact. It has been proposed at the international level in United Nations climate change negotiations, however exact details are still in development.
The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is an initiative hosted by the World Bank and designed to assist ‘tropical and subtropical forest countries develop the systems and policies for REDD+’. REDD is an innovative market based instrument designed to place value on standing forests and so reduce emissions from forest destruction and deforestation.
The FCPF has two main components:
The UN-REDD Programme is a Multi-Donor Trust Fund established to support efforts at mitigating carbon emissions as a result of deforestation and forest degradation.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) ‘is a cutting-edge forestry initiative that aims at tipping the economic balance in favour of sustainable management of forests’. REDD+ as a concept goes further than REDD by including conservation, sustainable forestry management (SFM) and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The UN- REDD programme focuses on both.
The Rainforest Alliance Certified seal can appear on farmers’ produce if they have complied with standards set by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). These standards are predominantly environmental; however they also include social and economic aspects.
The SAN standards are guided by 10 principles, outlined below:
The International Standards Organisation has developed a series of standards that specify principles and requirements for organisations involved in greenhouse gas emission reporting. The ISO standards can be seen as guiding protocols providing general guidelines for the development of other programmes or standards.
The Voluntary Emissions Reduction VER Standard is for carbon offset projects and has been developed by TÜV SÜD (a German based verification company).
A number of project types are elgigible for certification, however like the Kyoto mechanisms (Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation) it excludes nuclear power projects and large hydropower projects over 80MW. Hydropower projects over 20MW must conform to requirements of the World Commission on Dams.
The Clean Technology Fund (CTF) is one of two Climate Investment Funds administered by Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and is designed to finance demonstration, deployment and transfer of low emissions technologies to low income countries. The CTF draws upon a budget of US$ 4.5 billion.
The MDBs involved are: African Development Bank; Asian Development Bank; European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Inter-American Development Bank; World Bank Group.
The Global Environment Fund is a private company that manages approximately US$ 1 billion of private equity It has 3 strategic areas for ‘green’ investment.
1. Growth in the United States
Investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and environmental infrastructure.
2. Emerging Markets
