Sustainability Policies

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is the global authority that sets the environmental agenda. According to it, environmental sustainability involves making life choices that ensure an equal, if not better, way of life for future generations. Environmental sustainability aims to improve the quality of human life without putting unnecessary strain on the earth’s supporting ecosystems. It is about creating an equilibrium between consumerist human culture and the living world, by living in a way that doesn’t waste or unnecessarily deplete natural resources.

The EUYO is committed to fully understanding and attempting to minimize its negative impacts upon the environment through an Environmental Sustainability Policy.
This Policy is designed to help promote a more environmentally sustainable future with respect to all effects caused by the EUYO’s work, by establishing the principles that will guide the EUYO’s work in the area of environmental sustainability.

These principles are Learn, Do and Encourage:

I) LEARN – ensuring awareness of the need for environmental sustainability and knowledge about it, by the EUYO community as well as, where possible, collaborators, stakeholders and partners.

II) DO – defining, implementing and regularly reviewing a range of realistic practices in the EUYO’s daily activities that contribute to promoting environmental sustainability.

III) ENCOURAGE – encouraging all organizations and individuals with whom the EUYO interacts to consider the importance of measures to promote environmental sustainability.

The EUYO’s Green Team is appointed annually by mutual agreement by the EUYO executive management. The Green Team is responsible for creating and overseeing the EUYO Environmental Sustainability Action Plan (SAP), which fulfils the requirements of the EUYO’s official Environmental Sustainability Policy.

The EUYO SAP formulates goals and objectives every 2 years, guided by the EUYO’s sustainability principles LEARN, DO, & ENCOURAGE. It also includes:

• A plan to communicate the EUYO’s sustainability policy, SAP, activities and/or progress to the EUYO community and to other parties including funders, stakeholders, partners, followers and public.
• A set of actions and activities that raise awareness of environmental sustainability, and encourage other organizations to take account of these.
• Sustainable travel guidelines that specify regulations and tools on how to minimize the environmental impact of travelling, including a carbon footprint calculation for the EUYO’s travel activities, and a plan for carbon reduction.
• Recommended actions to minimize emissions through EUYO events, in balance with other EUYO event requirements, acknowledging that footprint should play a role in the selection of an event destination, as well as travel, accommodation and other arrangements affecting sustainability, where possible.
• Encouragement steps for the owners and operators of the EUYO’s permanent and residency office buildings, to make those buildings as energy efficient as possible.
• Encouraging employees to make use of environmentally friendly transportation modes for commuting to and from work spaces, and to make sustainable choices outside the office and in the home office.
• A training plan for EUYO Green Team members.

The SAP is reviewed by the Green Team annually, or more regularly if the Green Team considers it necessary.