The Climate Charter has been developed by the ICRC and IFRC guided by an Advisory Committee of 19 NGOs, UN agencies, academics, researchers, experts and other stakeholders, and including input from more than 150 organizations and over 200 individuals.

By signing the Charter, as an organization you commit to 6 commitments, and given the scope and reach of signatories, you contribute to a global push towards a greener humanitarian sector that actively contributes to solving the climate and environment crises.

We highly recommend your organization to sign the Charter. While this is of course only a first step, the Charter’s 6 commitments might inspire you in setting the right level of ambition for your organisation’s policies and strategies.  

DCA international strategy
2019-2022 Internal climate policy

DanChurchAid addresses climate change as a cross-cutting commitment in the organisation’s international strategy 2019-2022. The strategy requires all projects to consider the possible effects of climate change on project activities, and the possible emissions caused by implementation of projects. While the strategy does not explicitly require that all projects take climate action, it entails a clear focus on understanding risks for better adaptation and resilience building as well as a commitment to strengthening the awareness of GHG emissions related to project implementation. 

The strategic commitment is accompanied by a dedicated internal climate policy that states DCA’s commitment to comply with the Paris Agreement targets and details the initiatives DCA intends to take to reduce emissions and offset emissions from its operations and projects in Denmark and internationally.

Position Paper on SRHR & Climate Change & Climate-policy & Green-strategy 

Groupe URD refers to tools that revolve around a life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach. These will be included in future European Commission procurement processes: 

• The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) is a method to quantify the environmental impacts of products (goods or services). 
• A climate specific alternative is the calculation of Product Carbon Footprint (PCF), such as the ISO 14067, which is widely applicable to products and is intended to promote transparency. 

References: Chapter 3.1.

DCA actively works towards strengthened integration of climate and environment considerations in procurement. They have a dedicated section for green and ethical procurement guidelines in their procurement manual. The following documents provide examples of how DCA works with green procurement:

• A brief introduction by DCA on how to approach the issue of green procurement.
• The Code of Conduct for Contractors.
  
  

The European Commission has published a Green Public Procurement manual presenting the basics of ‘Buying Green’ as a public procurer. 

A training toolkit is available here: https://green-business.ec.europa.eu/green-public-procurement/gpp-training-toolkit_en

Several guides on sustainable procurement are available (in Danish) from ‘Forum for Bæredygtige Indkøb’ (the Forum for Sustainable Procurement). Ranging from the procurement of transport to plastic, there are also resources in the form of cases and objectives for sustainable procurement here.

The City of Copenhagen has an extensive procurement policy with a separate chapter on sustainable procurement, which can be used as an inspiration for what should be addressed in a procurement policy  (in Danish)

Global Focus and members have developed a list of recommendations for developing a flight policy in your organisation to minimize GHG-emissions (in Danish).

TAKING CLIMATE RESPONSIBILITY - A HOW TO GUIDE FOR NGOs TO MEASURE, SET TARGETS AND REDUCE GHG EMISSIONS

The guide is developed by Global Focus members together with the Footprint consultancy firm in order to guide NGOs on making emission baseline accounting and setting realistic reduction targets. 

The guide consists of a toolkit and a template.

CARE international has launched an online learning tool on ‘Becoming a climate smart organisation’ to help reduce carbon footprints, identify priority areas for emission reductions, and monitor progress. 

• The 6 steps to make your office climate smart is a good place to start.

The tool includes several suggestions for specific tools that can help measure emissions. 

The DCA internal climate policy presents advice on reducing emissions from air travel and land transport, and how to compensate for unavoidable emissions from travel. The organisation has gathered data on business travel by air since 2013 (provided by the travel agent) to measure emissions from travel and start a dialogue on alternative low carbon transport and dialogue solutions. 

DCA is currently in the process of setting up a system to account for emissions beyond travel at HQ and Country Office level. 

For a more generic calculation tool, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the most widely used voluntary standard for greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting.

The Science Based Target Initiative supports the setting of science-based targets in order to comply with the emissions reduction targets set by the Paris Agreement.

The Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv) has developed a Guide for Climate Accounting (in Danish) which is an easy introduction to how to account for emissions. It is adaptable for many NGOs as it is built on the GHG protocol.

Legacy is an online system to automatically calculate CO2 emissions. It includes continuous measurements of electricity, heating, water, and waste and translates this to CO2-emissions. The aim is to create a database based on information from clients, also including aspects of transport and travel and materials, in order to enable predictions of how best to reduce emissions. 

DFPA has entered into a partnership with Legacy to use this method.

An easy-to-use tool for calculating GHG emissions from business activities in full accordance with the GHG-protocol. The tool will be updated yearly with new emission factors and should be adaptable to an NGO context.

One way of tracking green elements and objectives is the Rio Marker method, using a score system of 0, 1 and 2 to indicate whether a project element or objective is principally or significantly contributing to climate change mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity or non-desertification. Using the relevant guides on climate or biodiversity, respectfully, you will find examples of project types that can help you clarify how to score your own specific projects.

The method is relatively easy to use, but not very precise, especially if the purpose is to track spending on green projects. Depending on your ambitions, resources and purpose of tracking your projects, the Rio Markers will be more or less useful.

In 2022, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is expected to publish guidelines for Danish NGOs on Rio Markers. 

DCA did a mapping of all their projects in 2017 and 2019 using the Rio Markers. In 2019, 35% of DCA projects were assessed to be climate related (scoring a 1 or 2 on adaptation or mitigation). The assessment was conducted by the climate team in DCA and was based on project descriptions and budgets of 268 projects. The study has helped DCA to gain a better understanding of the share of projects related to climate action, the type of climate action that is most prevalent and to identify flagship projects for organisational learning and inspiration. The study is an important part of monitoring the DCA strategic commitment to climate action, aiming for all projects to consider climate change.

The Climate Action Tracker, the Climate Watch database and other initiatives bring together data on global Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and in this way give an overview of national mitigation

The NDC Partnership toolbox provides a broad range of climate action tools related to the NDCs cutting across sectors and intervention levels.

Several sources for plans and budgets are listed in the CISU climateintegration toolkit. 

Reference: Page 7

The NDC Partnership toolbox provides a broad range of climate action tools related to the NDCs cutting across sectors and intervention levels.

A database of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) is available here, alongside a brief description of how to use them in project development and design. 

CPEIR is a systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis of a country's public expenditures and how they relate to climate change. It is an innovative tool that presents evidence on public expenditures across all a country’s ministries. Through the country database, you can generate and export data relevant to the specific context of your projects.

DCA Learning Lab has developed an Advocacy Academy together with the ACT Alliance to support staff and partners through a virtual course and community of practice. This is an example of organisations supporting staff and partners to strengthen capacities on government dialogue, collaboration and advocacy – on climate issues as well as other issues.

CARE International’s Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis exemplifies how climate risks, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities can be explored and integrated in programming. The handbook also refers to a number of external resources and good practice examples. 

References: Chapter 2 and chapter 3 for participatory tools.

Country profiles summarising climate information are developed by e.g. the World Bank and the World Health Organisation.

This screening guideline considers both humanitarian and development interventions, and takes you through a series of environmentally related questions to determine the necessity of carrying out an environmental impact assessment.

This tool does not require any previous knowledge of environmental considerations. The NEAT+ includes climate change impacts in its analysis, including the impact on availability or access to water and the importance of ecosystem preservation.

SIDA explains the use of status and process indicators respectively and this will be relevant for some specific climate- and environmental focused interventions. These should also, if applicable, include 

an indicator for both mitigation and adaptation efforts.  

References: Page 5

While specific outcomes or planned results are highly context-specific, inspiration for these can be found in the list of indicators developed by SIDA. 

References: Appendix 1 and 2 

If your initial screening showed no significant environmental or climate impacts, SIDA recommends (and as a requirement for their partners) that a Simplified Environmental Assessment - a series of 5 questions - is conducted by describing and prioritising the positive and negative outcomes of the project related to environment and climate.

If the screening showed significant climate and environmental impacts of the project or programme, SIDA and NEAT+ calls for a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). 

Several approaches to conducting an EIA are presented by a joint effort between WWF and American Red Cross in their Green Recovery & Reconstruction: Training Toolkit for Humanitarian Aid, specifically in the third training module called “Environmental Impact Assessment and Techniques”. One of the tools is the “Environmental Stewardship Review for Humanitarian Aid (ESR)“.

References: Annex 2 of the Module 3 Content Paper.

DCA’s International Strategy reiterates the organisation's focus on the involvement of local CSOs and other local partners in its interventions. DCA works partner-based to a large extent and climate and environment is a cross- cutting commitment throughout the strategy.

References: Page 28

Several international standards and resources can be beneficial to the process of ensuring localisation, local ownership etc. including the Grand Bargain’s commitments on Localisation.

The Global Center on Adaptation (gca.org) Action Track on Locally led Adaptation.

The WRI information on the GCA track for locally led adaptation: Locally Led Action Track. 

The blog 5 Benefits to Local Action on Climate Resilience

DCA is currently documenting cases of locally led / partner led adaptation and will share cases for learning in 2021. 

CARE International has made a study on how to develop local capacity and effective partnerships from community-based adaptation projects in Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

Climate-Adapt lists a range of different types of capacity development interventions and includes different resources related to the different interventions.

The Danida Market Development Partnerships (DMDP) guidelines include commitments for responsible business conduct by private sector partners including environment and climate concerns. 

References: Page 6 on ‘Responsible Business Conduct’ and Annex 1 for a list of assessment criteria for potential partners.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are a set of 31 principles directed at states and companies that clarify their duties and responsibilities to protect and respect human rights in the context of business activities and to ensure access to an effective remedy for individuals and groups affected by such activities. It is widely accepted that the responsibility to respect human rights and environmental rights includes the responsibility to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for impacts related to climate change

The objective of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct is to provide practical support to enterprises on the implementation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by providing plain language explanations of its due diligence recommendations and associated provisions. Implementing these recommendations help

enterprises avoid and address adverse impacts related to workers, human rights, the environment, bribery, consumers and corporate governance that may be associated with their operations, supply chains and other business relationships.

The UN Global Compact Self-Assessment tool can be used for an initial screening of a potential private sector partner for 5 distinct focuses, one of which is environmental considerations. If gaps are identified, the tool further provides inspiration for follow-up actions

References: Chapter on “Environment requirements”.