Greening the humanitarian system

System at the cross road

The humanitarian system has been on a transformative journey for many years, anchored in the vital principle of saving lives and the dignity of the people affected by natural hazards, whether they stem from natural disasters or human-made crises. Historically, this system has prioritised swift outreach to those in need and the efficient delivery of essential goods and services. This model has remained largely intact since the development of modern humanitarian architecture after World War II. In post-cold war era, the humanitarian system has seen significant changes. The Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) was created in 1991, later becoming OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) in 1998, signalling a move toward more coordinated responses. The responsibilities to protect(R2P) have seen a conceptually significant shift that sovereignty is not a shield for mass atrocities. Adopted at the UN World Summit in 2005. The Cluster Approach was adopted in 2005 as part of the broader Humanitarian agenda. In 2005, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) formally endorsed the cluster approach following recommendations from the Humanitarian Response Review (HRR), commissioned in the wake of criticism over the response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and other crises. There is also a notable shift towards localisation, amplifying the voices of local actors and ensuring that funding flows more directly to support those on the ground. The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and its flagship outcome, the Grand Bargain, requested donors and agencies to a series of reforms: increasing cash-based assistance, reducing earmarking of funds, cutting bureaucratic reporting burdens, and, most significantly, directing a greater share of humanitarian financing directly to local and national responders.

Gaps: Reform and operation

However, all these years, model of service delivery remain same; these institutional reforms are easy to adopt and implement, but the operational dynamics and effectiveness of the response remain in flux.

As we face the growing challenge of climate change and its widespread impacts, it is crucial to rethink and adapt our aid delivery methods. Data from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) indicates that, from 1970 to 2019, weather, climate, and water hazards were responsible for 50% of all disasters, 45% of reported deaths, and 74% of economic losses. Alarmingly, over 91% of those deaths occurred in developing countries.

This context underscores the urgency of addressing climate-related threats. The ten most impactful disasters during this period, including droughts, storms, floods, and extreme temperatures, remind us of the consequences of inaction. As we anticipate an increase in heatwaves and forest fires, the pressing question becomes whether our current humanitarian system is adequately prepared to respond to these complex challenges. To effectively meet these needs, we must enhance our coordination efforts, improve data gathering and analysis, make informed decisions, collaborate with scientific institutions, secure substantial funding, and invest in building strong human resources.

Greening the operations

Furthermore, it is essential to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation strategies within humanitarian operations. By aligning our aid efforts with sustainability measures, we can create a more robust response framework. This approach not only addresses immediate needs but also ensures that our actions contribute to long term resilience, ultimately fostering a more effective humanitarian system that can navigate the dual challenges of providing relief and combating climate change. Among the several factors, some of the issues like the use of energy, procurement and supply chain, fleets and logistics at the time of humanitarian response are the major contributor in the climate change. Yet most of the humanitarian agencies these days operating under the serious finding cut are finding it difficult to adhere climate sensitive requirement, which is doubly difficult to manage by the local or community-based organisations. However, a few of the examples of greening the humanitarian system are noteworthy and worth mentioning. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jordan had announced an innovative plan for the Zaatari and Azraq refugee camps, aiming to rely almost entirely on sustainable solar energy by the end of 2024. As per the recent data from the UN agency, 97 per cent of the electricity needs in both camps will be met through solar power. In 2024, solar power stations within the camps currently fulfil 60 to 70 per cent of their electricity requirements, with the remaining 30 per cent sourced from the national grid, which predominantly relies on carbon-based power stations. Similarly, at Bossangoa Hospital in the Central African Republic (CAR), a newly installed solar system means the facility now uses only about 400 gallons of diesel per month. This shift represents an annual saving of around 12,600 gallons of diesel and a reduction of more than 130 tons of CO₂ emissions.

Further, a large-scale initiative to distribute LPG in the Rohingya refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar, implemented by UNHCR, IUCN, and the Government of Bangladesh, led to an estimated 80% reduction in average household firewood demand.

There is also an urgent need to conduct the life cycle assessment (LCA) of several humanitarian products being used by the humanitarian agencies across the region. i.e Blankets, jerrycans, tarps, soap, mosquito nets, food rations — often under emergency conditions, at enormous scale, and repeatedly across multiple crises. Without LCA thinking, procurement decisions are made purely on price and availability, ignoring hidden environmental costs. A standard foil emergency blanket appears cheap and lightweight. But an LCA might reveal: the aluminium coating requires energyintensive smelting from bauxite mining, it is single-use and non-recyclable in field conditions, and it ends up as toxic waste in or near crisis-affected communities. A locally woven wool blanket, though heavier to ship, has a lower total carbon footprint when sourced regionally and can be reused or composted. Further, a 20 litre HDPE (High-Density Polyethene) plastic jerrycan is the global standard for water distribution. An LCA examines: Petroleum extraction to make HDPE plastic, energy used in moulding and manufacturing, shipping weight and distance from factory to field, and lifespan. Does it get recycled, burned, or end up as plastic pollution in a river? In the food delivery, the use of skimmed milk powder in the humanitarian system can be compensated for.

Converting liquid milk into shelf-stable skimmed milk powder is energy-intensive: It requires pasteurisation, evaporation (removing 87% of water content), spray drying (forcing liquid through hot air at 150–200°C), and packaging in airtight foil-lined bags. It also requires cold chains and long-distance shipping. Since the milk powder constitutes 25% of (Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food) RUTF by weight and carries 3–5x the carbon intensity of other ingredients, it dominates the product’s total lifecycle emissions.

Take another example, the use of Tarpaulins in the humanitarian response. This is one of the standard interventions, mainly for the shelter and several other daily works, widely used by most of the humanitarian agencies. However, most of the tarps are derived from petroleum and natural gas. Their production begins with fossil fuel extraction — a carbon-intensive process before a single tarpaulin is even manufactured. In the manufacturing process, plastic weaving, lamination, heat-sealing of edges, and eyelet insertion are all energy intensive industrial processes. Most of them have end-of-life like, burned — releasing toxic dioxins from plastic combustion, buried or dumped — persisting in soil for 200–500 years, fragmenting into microplastics or left as litter — entering waterways, agricultural land, and food chains as plastic pollution. Instead, jute-based fibre plants can be used, which are highly cultivated after cotton and found in Bangladesh, India, and some East African countries. The woven jute fabric can be treated with natural waterproofing agents by using natural rubber, bee wax etc to produce a shelter sheet. It is also 100% biodegradable, and it decomposes within months when discarded. Another alternative material could be Hemp (Cannabis sativa), which produces one of the strongest natural fibres known. It has been historically used as sailcloth and military tent material for millennia and is a proven weatherproof sheeting material. Treated with natural oils or wax, it achieves excellent water resistance. What is required is the quality standardisation of these products and field level protocols, which can be obtained through field-based pilot interventions.

Conclusions and recommendations

The humanitarian system stands at a genuinely critical juncture. Climate change is simultaneously the greatest driver of new humanitarian need and the most powerful argument for transforming how that need is met. The current model of humanitarian intervention was designed for a different era. It assumed abundant fossil fuel energy, centralised global supply chains, and a humanitarian caseload that, while significant, was bounded. None of those assumptions holds today. Humanitarian operations must now deliver relief in contexts increasingly shaped by the very climat crisis to which the sector contributes — and in which communities bear both the burden of disasters and the long-term costs of plastic waste, deforestation for firewood, and diesel pollution.

Greening the humanitarian system is therefore not an environmental add-on to existing operations. It is a fundamental reconfiguration of what a good humanitarian response looks like — one in which local supply chains, renewable energy, biodegradable materials, and lifecycle thinking are not premium options but operational standards. This reconfiguration will require political will from donors, institutional commitment from agencies, investment in local manufacturing and agricultural capacity, and a willingness to accept that speed and scale — the traditional imperatives of humanitarian response — must now be balanced with sustainability as an equal imperative.

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