The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), an agency of the United Nations, coordinates the organization's environmental activities and assists developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded by Maurice Strong, its first director, as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has overall responsibility for environmental problems among United Nations agencies; however, international talks on specialized issues, such as addressing climate change or combating desertification, are overseen by other UN organizations, like the Bonn-based Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. UNEP's activities cover a wide range of issues regarding the atmosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, environmental governance and green economy. It has played a significant role in developing international environmental conventions, promoting environmental science and information and illustrating the way those can be implemented in conjunction with policy, working on the development and implementation of policy with national governments, regional institutions in conjunction with environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). UNEP has also been active in funding and implementing environment related development projects.
Non-governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, or nongovernment organizations, commonly referred to as NGOs, are usually non-profit and sometimes international organizations independent of governments and international governmental organizations that are active in humanitarian, educational, health care, public policy, social, human rights, environmental, and other areas to effect changes according to their objectives. They are thus a subgroup of all organizations founded by citizens, which include clubs and other associations that provide services, benefits, and premises only to members. Sometimes the term is used as a synonym of "civil society organization" to refer to any association founded by citizens, but this is not how the term is normally used in the media or everyday language, as recorded by major dictionaries. The explanation of the term by NGO.org is ambivalent. It first says an NGO is any non-profit, voluntary citizens' group which is organized on a local, national or international level, but then goes on to restrict the meaning in the sense used by most English speakers and the media: Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information.
WorldFish is an international, nonprofit research organization with headquarters in Penang, Malaysia, and offices in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. WorldFish’s mission is to harness the potential of fisheries and aquaculture to reduce poverty and hunger in developing countries.
Capacity building is the process by which individuals and organizations obtain, improve, and retain the skills, knowledge, tools, equipment and other resources needed to do their jobs competently or to a greater capacity. Capacity building and capacity development are often used interchangeably.
Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) is a not-for-profit network headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. ESW is an umbrella organization with chapters established at over 50 colleges, universities, and city chapters located primarily in the United States and Canada ESW members work on technical design projects that have a focus on sustainability and environmental issues. Projects can be located either on-campus, in the local community, or internationally. Chapters are made up of students or professionals and are semi-autonomous.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH or GIZ in short is a German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn that provides services in the field of international development cooperation. GIZ mainly implements technical cooperation projects of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), its main commissioning party, although it also works with the private sector and other national and supranational government organizations on a public benefit basis. In its activities GIZ seeks to follow the paradigm of sustainable development, which aims at economic development through social inclusion and environmental protection. GIZ offers consulting and capacity building services in a wide range of areas, including management consulting, rural development, sustainable infrastructure, security and peace-building, social development, governance and democracy, environment and climate change, and economic development and employment.
The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University seeks to expand understanding and accelerate critical thinking about civil society among scholars, practitioners, policy makers and the general public, by encouraging scholarship, developing curriculum, fostering mutual learning between academics and practitioners, and shaping policies that enhance the sector and its role in society. The Hauser Center was established by Rita Hauser and her husband Gustave M. Hauser in 1997.
The Women's Environment & Development Organization (WEDO) is an international non-governmental organization based in New York City, U.S. that advocates women's equality in global policy. It was founded in 1990 by Bella Abzug and Mim Kelber to take action in the United Nations and other international policymaking forums. Its early successes included achieving gender equality in the final documents of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration. In 2006, the organization was named as an international Champion of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Programme. The mission of WEDO is to ensure that women's rights, the social, economic and environmental justice, and sustainable development principles are invested at the heart of global/national policies, the programs initiated and practices established. The way that WEDO is approaching these issues of environmental change is by addressing those complex environmental problems by incorporating women's humans rights to secure sustainable development for future generations. There are two main goals of the Women's Environment and Development Organization: to make sure women feel empowered enough to claim their rights as advocates and leaders and to develop sustainable development policies and plans that are gender-responsive and socially just and are implemented in a way that is effective.
The Earth Island Institute is non-profit environmental group founded in 1982 by David Brower. Located in Berkeley, California, it supports activism around environmental issues through fiscal sponsorship that provides the administrative and organizational infrastructure for individual projects. As of 2010, Earth Island Institute's total net assets were $7.1 million.
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute(EESI) is an independent, bi-partisan 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that aims to promote environmentally sustainable societies. Based out of Washington, DC, EESI seeks to be a catalyst moving society away from environmentally damaging fossil fuels and toward a clean energy future. The organization was established in 1984 by a bipartisan and bicameral group of members of the United States Congress who were concerned with global environmental and energy problems.
This article includes information about environmental groups and resourcesthat serve K–12 schools in the United States and internationally. The entries in this article are for broad-scope organizations that serve at least one state or similar region.
The United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP) strives to serve as a gateway for public-private partnerships in furtherance of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Office oversees the following areas:
Wiser.org, formerly WiserEarth.org, was a user-generated online community space for the social and environmental movement. As one of the social networks for environmental sustainability and social change, Wiser.org was the primary initiative of the non-profit organization WiserEarth, which tracks the work of non-profits around the world. The site mapped and connected non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, governments, groups, and individuals addressing global issues such as climate change, poverty, the environment, peace, water, hunger, social justice, conservation, human rights, and more.
The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to examining how genuine democracies can develop in the Middle East and how the United States can best support that process. Through dialogue, research, and advocacy, POMED works to strengthen the constituency for U.S. policies that peacefully support democratic reform in the Middle East.
The Conservation Fund is an American environmental non-profit with a dual charter to pursue environmental preservation and economic development. Since its founding in 1985, the organization has protected more than 7 million acres of land and water in all 50 states, including parks, historic battlefields, and wild areas. The Fund works with community and government leaders, businesses, landowners, conservation nonprofits and other partners to create innovative solutions that integrate economic and environmental objectives. The Fund also works with communities to strategically plan development and green space and offer training in conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources.
The GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTE (GEI) was founded in the U.S. in 2003 and was registered as an independent non-profit organization in the State of Delaware. GEI's mission was to design and implement market-based models for solving environmental problems in order to achieve development that is economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable. GEI was dissolved in October 2011. GEI's sister organization, the independent Beijing Chaoyang District Sustainable Global Environmental Institute in China (GEI-China) remains active.
Environmental governance is a concept in political ecology and environmental policy that advocates sustainability as the supreme consideration for managing all human activities—political, social and economic. Governance includes government, business and civil society, and emphasizes whole system management. To capture this diverse range of elements, environmental governance often employs alternative systems of governance, for example watershed-based management.
Sustainability organizations are (1) organized groups of people that aim to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
