As President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Mr. Jacques Rogge has played an important role in the development of the sport and environment agenda. The changes he has brought to the organization have reinforced the importance of the environment in the work of the Olympic Movement.
Mr. Rogge has perpetuated a policy that seeks to provide greater resources to sustainable development in and through sport at national, regional and international levels, and particularly at the Olympic Games. This policy enshrined in The Olympic Charter is an important development as it strives to promote Olympic Games which respect the environment and meet the standards of sustainable development. Furthermore, it aims to promote awareness among and educate the members of the Olympic family and sports practitioners in general of the importance of a healthy environment for sustainable development.
Since taking the helm of the IOC in July 2001, Mr. Rogge has introduced stringent environmental requirements for cities bidding to host Olympic Games. As a result of these measures, no bid is considered without a comprehensive environmental programme. He has played an active and personal role in encouraging organizers of Olympic Games (Turin 2006 and Beijing 2008 in particular) to fulfil their environmental pledges and commitments. Under his Presidency, the Torino Games were widely hailed as the greenest games and considered innovative and a model for future “green” games.
In addition, Mr. Rogge has endorsed the continuation of the IOC biennial World Conference for Sport and Environment and regional seminars for sport and environment. Under his leadership, the World Conference has become one of the most recognizable events on sport and the environment and continues to draw stakeholders from all sectors of the sporting world to discuss their role and contributions to sustainable development.
It is difficult enough to be an environmentalist in nations where peace prevails, struggling in the face of business interests and systems based upon outmoded ways of thinking. To do so in nations riven by conflict, where speaking out can lead to threats and, in extreme cases, death, requires a whole new level of courage. Fatima Jibrell is one such individual who has put aside personal risk to stand up for what she believes in.
Jibrell is one of Somalia’s leading environmental activists and the founder of Adeso—a non-profit organization established in 1991 in response to the outbreak of a devastating civil war that created a humanitarian crisis and sparked decades of instability and chaos.
She is driven by the belief that community-led change is the key route to a more prosperous, peaceful, and environmentally sound future. With Jibrell at its helm, Adeso has mobilized local and international resources to protect Somalia’s pastoral way of life and fragile environment, upon which so many livelihoods depend.
In particular, Jibrell has fought tirelessly against the illegal charcoal trade, which has decimated ancient acacia trees in Somalia. Ordinary Somalis are often not aware of the long-term consequences of deforestation and desertification brought by the trade in this inexpensive fuel, and Jibrell has dedicated near twenty years of her life to educating her country on the importance of conserving what remains of the acacia population.
Jibrell has displayed fierce commitment and determination to organize marches, produce educational videos, and lobby politicians to end the destructive trade. She was instrumental in bringing about a ban on the export of charcoal in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, and thus drastically reducing the charcoal trade. She also tackled local demand—co-funding Sun Fire Cooking, which promotes widespread use of solar cookers as an alternative to charcoal.
Her efforts to build peace, advocate better environmental practices and protect the livelihoods of Somalia’s pastoralists were recognized in 2002 when she was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. In 2007, she was awarded the National Geographic/Buffet Award for Leadership in African Conservation.
Jibrell is an outstanding example of the power of the individual to bring about change, harnessing her beliefs and energy into inspiring entire communities and nations to set aside short-term gain and create the possibility of a brighter future for generations to come.
Russian scientist Dr. Olga Speranskaya has been garnering headlines worldwide for her work to reduce the harmful impact of toxic chemicals in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Many former Soviet countries are home to vast stockpiles of highly toxic obsolete pesticides. Exposure to such pollutants can seriously damage human health and the environment.
Dr. Speranskaya formed a civil society network that has grown to include NGO groups, governmental bodies and academics. Its aim is to work on phasing out obsolete pesticides and other chemicals. The campaign succeeded in pushing national governments to ratify the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which aims to eliminate the release of such products into the environment. Nine of twelve countries in the region ratified the Convention and now participate as full Parties at its global meetings. She has also led campaigns to ban the burial and transport of hazardous chemicals.
As co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), Dr. Speranskaya has helped NGOs implement more than 70 projects on toxic chemicals in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The NGOs have identified contaminated hotspots, analyzed the health impacts of POPs, developed proposals for mitigating these poisonous chemicals, and coordinated public participation in the identification of unauthorized storage and use of banned and obsolete chemicals.
“It feels great to be recognized by UNEP as a Champion of the Earth, said Dr. Speranskaya “It demonstrates how important the work that we do is and how people all over the world really recognize that chemical safety is a great challenge and one of the major problems that we now face.”
A voice loved by thousands of fans around the world, singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo is also a powerful voice for humanitarian and environmental change. Described by Time Magazine as "Africa's premier diva", Benin-born Kidjo uses her celebrity status to speak out in support of a number of important causes, particularly girls’ education and sustainable development.
Kidjo established The Batonga Foundation in 2009, which provides scholarships, school supplies and mentoring programmes and raises community awareness of the value of education for girls in Africa.
Kidjo was raised in both the voodoo tradition and Catholic faith, and speaks of how her childhood taught her respect for nature. As part of her advocacy work on the environment and sustainable development, Kidjo recorded a video for UNEP’s ‘Seal the Deal’ campaign, encouraging world leaders to produce a binding agreement on cutting carbon emissions and tackling climate change.
In 2010, Kidjo was appointed as a Patron for the UN Music & Environment Initiative. Led by the UNEP in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other partners, the initiative aims to leverage the power of music to address some of the most pressing environmental problems facing the planet.
“Any time I can spare from my family, my music, to go around the world and work with different kinds of people, that are struggling everyday to make their lives better and other peoples better, I will do so, because otherwise why am I here?” says Kidjo.
“My life will be useless, if I do not share my talent, my skill and my spirit. I’m not made to live alone, I’m made to live with other people on this planet.”
A legendary venture capitalist and the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Khosla has been dubbed Silicon Valley’s ‘Mr. Green’. In September 2009, Khosla’s venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures, announced it had raised US$1.1 billion in a “green fund” that would be used to spur development of renewable energy and other clean technologies.
The fund came at a time when venture capital investments in green technology were just beginning to recover from a precipitous fall prompted by the global economic collapse in 2008. Of the US$1.1 billion, US$800 million will place investments in more established technologies while US$275 million will be used to make smaller investments in earlier stage technology companies. At the time of its announcement, the fund was the largest launched since 2007 and one of the largest ever launched for clean technologies.
Mr. Khosla has begun several environmental start-ups to try to reduce the world’s dependence on petroleum. He says the burgeoning revolution in oil alternatives will be bigger -- far bigger – than the internet revolution of yesteryear.
In his personal life, Khosla is carbon-neutral. He offsets his own carbon emissions with TerraPass.com and Carbonfund.org, and says he will soon be carbon-negative.
In January 2010, Bill Gates announced he has invested in Khosla’s green technology fund. When asked about Khosla, Gates said: “He is backing some great entrepreneurs. I get some exposure to them as part of that. Innovation is called for in a big way.”
Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo has gained international recognition for his position on environmental issues within his country and on the global scale.
As the President of a country with 40 million acres of untouched rainforest, Mr. Jagdeo worked on inviting donors and investors to pay for the protection of the forests through the sale of carbon credits, or investments in eco-tourism and pharmaceutical discoveries. With the money he hoped to generate from this trade, President Jagdeo planned to improve the country’s coastal infrastructure to protect it from the potential rise in sea levels.
He proposed that the UN Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program adopts Guyana’s model on forest management and has encouraged the rest of the world to live in a way “where protecting forests is more economically prudent than cutting them down”.
He served as Guyana’s Prime Minister and Minister of Finance prior to winning the presidency in 2001 and 2006.
Despite progress in recent years, it still remains a tough ask for politicians to stand and operate successfully on a primarily green platform. The former President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, however, has been at the forefront of a transition to a new world order—in which politicians who champion good environmental stewardship as a means to economic prosperity will become the norm.
In his ten years as President, which ended in October 2014, President Yudhoyono stuck to his guns in face of sometimes intense opposition, making environmental integrity a central tenet of Indonesia’s sustainable development and enabling his nation to achieve economic growth while supporting and promoting low-carbon development.
At the 2009 G-20 Leaders Summit in Pittsburgh, he became the first president from a major developing country to voluntarily pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—committing to cutting emissions by as much as 41 from predicted business-as-usual 2020 levels by tackling forest fires and deforestation. He put his money where his mouth when he imposed a two-year moratorium on logging concessions. In 2011, in the face of intense industry pressure, he extended this moratorium for another two years. He followed this up in 2013 when he signed into existence the world’s first dedicated REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agency at a cabinet level in 2013.
Meanwhile, he strove to spread awareness throughout Indonesia of the importance of responsible management of precious natural resources by integrating environmental conservation into national curricula, and by making it more difficult for perpetrators of environmental crimes to evade prosecution.
Now that his two terms are completed, President Yudhoyono will continue to follow his green path as the next Global Green Growth Institute Assembly President. His example as a politician unafraid to tread a green path is one that many other leaders of developing nations can draw strength from.
In his words to the G-20, “It is possible to cure the global economy and save the planet at the same time.”
One of Prince Albert II's first acts as sovereign of Monaco was to sign the Kyoto Protocol - an eloquent sign of his longstanding commitment to the environment. Prince Albert has been a prominent voice on environmental issues since the early 1990s and he has been strongly involved in raising awareness on climate change, leading an expedition to the North Pole in 2006 to draw attention to the consequences of global warming.
The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, which he created in 2006, works actively on protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development, with a focus on biodiversity loss, water and the fight against climate change. Prince Albert is also a patron of the Billion Tree Campaign, which successfully led to the planting of well over a billion trees across the planet in 2007.
Prince Albert has also shown remarkable commitment to sustainable development on his home turf of Monaco. Under his leadership, Monaco is now applying an exemplary policy on CO2 reduction in every sphere of society as well as in the business sector.
Mr. Ba-Jammal has had a truly pioneering influence on environmental protection in Yemen - a country which faces acute challenges from water scarcity to desertification. During his time as Minister and then Prime Minister, he established Yemen's Ministry of Water and Environment and Environment Protection Authority, solicited national and international funding for environmental conservation and sustainable water management, and implemented a series of groundbreaking environmental policies in Yemen and its region.
Mr. Ba-Jammal also orchestrated conservation efforts for the Socotra archipelago, a site of global importance for biodiversity. The Socotra conservation fund came into being under his patronage, and the archipelago was listed as a UNESCO Man and Biosphere reserve in 2003.
Among other achievements, Mr. Ba-Jammal also supported the declaration of several marine and land protected areas in Yemen and established a state agency for the development of Yemeni islands with a focus on marine resources conservation. Along with Mr. Ba-Jammal's work on Yemen's water sector, all these projects serve as key examples of environmental awareness in a region where water and conservation issues are of vital importance - increasingly so in a climate-constrained world.
The massive explosion that ripped through Beirut’s port in August 2020 left behind a tangled mess of concrete, metal and broken glass. The force of the blast, in which a stockpile of ammonium nitrate exploded, was felt more than 20km away.
With the Lebanese capital facing a massive cleanup effort, arcenciel was one of many non-profit groups to step in, gathering 12,000 tonnes of mostly shattered glass from destroyed neighbourhoods.
That glass would be crushed, melted and remoulded for future use.
“Following the Beirut blast, we had several projects to help rehabilitate neighbourhoods and collect shattered glass,” said Marc-Henri Karam, who leads arcenciel’s environment programmes.
The effort was emblematic of the role that arcenciel, this year’s Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action, has played in helping Lebanon manage its waste over the past two decades.
In a country that has struggled with waste management, the volunteer-led organization, which was founded in 1985, has launched programmes to recycle everything from medical waste to clothes. With years of expertise as a leading entity on treating hospital waste, it also helped Lebanon to develop its first waste management law.
“We identified lots of problems affecting the environment and especially the community and the health of society,” said Robin Richa, arcenciel’s General Manager. “We have tried to be strategic in identifying activities where we can make a sustainable impact.”
Managing waste
Arcenciel was created to support people wounded in Lebanon’s civil war. Its ethos of serving society has carried through to its present-day activities, which focus on helping marginalized people contribute to their communities, while encouraging environmental sustainability and the conservation of natural resources.
Through its Sustainable Agriculture and Environment programme, arcenciel provides solid waste management services, expertise and advocacy in Lebanon, a country which needed all the support it can to dispose of garbage safely and systematically. In 2003, the organization began treating medical waste which, if left untreated in open dumpsites and landfills, can cause infection, transmit diseases, contaminate water and pollute ecosystems.
Today, arcenciel treats 87 per cent of Lebanon’s hospital waste, using steam sterilization machines to convert it into domestic waste. Its role was even more urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic, which generated tens of thousands of tonnes of extra medical waste globally – from syringes, needles and test kits to masks, gloves and personal protective equipment. In 2020 alone, arcenciel treated 996 tonnes of medical waste.
“We are reducing the risk of infections and infectious waste in landfills. The impact is cleaner soil, cleaner groundwater and better health for everyone,” said Karam.
“Reducing waste and promoting recycling is critical to dismantling the throwaway culture that is polluting our planet and driving the climate emergency,” said Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “Arcenciel’s leadership in waste management is inspiring. The organization is helping to build a healthy environment for future generations.”
Crisis response
Environmentally sound waste management is critical for protecting ecosystems, and ultimately public health, which are core objectives of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Responding to crises has been a hallmark of arcenciel’s work. In 2015, when the closure of the Naameh landfill caused rubbish to pile up on the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, arcenciel more than doubled the amount of material it recycled, collecting 852 tonnes of waste. It also published a manual on effective waste management, trained municipalities in running their own waste management centres and raised public awareness on the issue.
The organization’s reuse-and-recycle philosophy also extends to old furniture and clothes. Anything that can be salvaged is saved from the landfill, repurposed and re-sold.
Legal precedent
Using its expertise in healthcare waste management, arcenciel, with the support of Beirut-based Université Saint Joseph and the Ministry of Health, published a manual setting out different types of healthcare waste, their proper treatment and disposal. This has become a vital tool in the application of Lebanon’s 2002/13389 decree on healthcare waste.
“The law makes it mandatory for hospitals to treat their waste and this is one of our biggest achievements,” said Karam.
In addition, arcenciel contributed to the drafting of the first solid waste management law that includes sorting from source and recycling, which passed in 2018. Together with the Ministry of Environment and Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform, arcenciel also crafted a national strategy based on years of work in the waste management sector.
Building for the future
In the Domaine de Taanayel, a 2.3 sq km plot of land in the Bekaa region, arcenciel has built a farm which runs almost exclusively on solar power, part of an effort to promote sustainable agriculture. To reduce soil erosion and water consumption, arcenciel uses fertigation, a process by which liquid fertilizer is delivered to plants in a more targeted way through the irrigation system. The Domaine is also the region’s only producer of biopesticides, which produce less toxic residue than conventional chemical pesticides. An ecolodge at the site helps to promote responsible tourism which respects the local environment and its ecosystems.
Arcenciel has helped improve waste management in two of Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camps and in three Syrian refugee camps in the Bekaa region. In Bekaa, the organization showed residents how to collect, sort and recycle waste, improving living conditions and providing an income for refugees.
Although Lebanon’s successive crises have presented many challenges, arcenciel’s team say they are determined to continue their work to protect the environment for generations to come.
“Building something for the future is what motivates us,” Richa said.
