Publications

The 2025 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2024, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.

The 2024 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2023, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.

The 2023 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2022, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.

The 2022 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2021, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.

The Common Approach to Biodiversity is the UN system’s shared framework for making biodiversity a consideration across the work of the whole UN system, with each organization contributing through its own mandate. The Common Approach was endorsed in 2021 by the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination and developed through the High-level Committee on Programmes.

The 2021 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2020, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.

This report highlights the relevance of biodiversity to the work of UN entities and its multiple benefits across the SDGs, human development, health and food security, human rights, and to global efforts to achieve poverty eradication, gender equality, climate resilience, chemicals management, sustainable economies and intergenerational equity. It stresses the need to urgently step up to the challenges of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, which is being exacerbated by climate change, by working together in partnership with Member States, civil society and the private sector, and taking actions that place people, nature and climate at the heart of our sustainable development efforts.

The 2020 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2019, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.

This document presents key elements of a proposed Model Approach to Environmental and Social Standards for UN programming The Model Approach represents a key step in moving towards a common approach among UN entities for addressing environmental and social standards in programming.

The 2019 edition of the Greening the Blue Annual Report presents the environmental performance of the UN system in 2018, covering operations of headquarters and field offices worldwide.