The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) is a consultative and participatory process to prepare an independent assessment of the state of the environment, the effectiveness of the policy response to address these environmental challenges, and possible pathways to achieve various internationally agreed environmental goals. The process also builds capacity for conducting integrated environmental assessments and reporting on environmental trends. GEO is also a series of products that inform environmental decision-making for governments and stakeholders such as youth, businesses, and local governments. It aims to facilitate the interaction between science and policy.
The GEO process involves various groups, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Secretariat, which convenes the process through the various advisory bodies, the authors and supporting fellows, and finally, the actors from civil society and business. Throughout the process, we expect participants to feel that they have been able to appropriately represent their views and are empowered to change the environment because they now have the appropriate knowledge to do so. The assessment report itself is the main product of the process. It synthesizes data, information and knowledge about the environment with the aim of informing future decisions and actions on the environment, ultimately leading to positive change.
What is an assessment?
Integrated Environmental Assessments (IEAs) are powerful tools for helping inform the development of evidence-based environmental policy and decision-making. However, for IEAs to be most useful, they must be performed consistently. For this reason, UNEP, in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, developed a training manual and guide for performing IEAs using the GEO approach.
An assessment involves the social process of critically evaluating and analyzing data and information designed to meet a user’s needs and support decision-making. It applies scientific knowledge from experts to analyse new and existing information and knowledge and provide scientifically credible answers to policy-relevant questions.
Environmental assessment is the process by which the consequences and effects of natural processes and human activities on the environment are estimated, evaluated or predicted. Assessments can include ways to minimize, mitigate or eliminate those effects within their scope and even compensate for their impact.
A good example is UNEP’s flagship assessment—the GEO reports. Over the past twenty years, these have examined a wealth of data, information and knowledge about the global environment, identified potential policy responses, and provided an outlook for the future. The GEO assessments and their consultative and collaborative processes have worked to bridge the gap between science and policy by turning the best available scientific knowledge into information relevant to decision-makers.
Typically, assessments that have the most impact seem to be those where findings are not only well communicated but also have a plan for acting on those findings. These assessments are often produced using a results-based management approach that includes a communication and outreach plan as part of their design. Follow-up ensures change and progress.
Why do assessments matter?
Assessments validate the importance of the issue being assessed by providing an authoritative analysis of policy-relevant information based on scientific study. Assessments also provide a platform for analysing the benefits, costs and risks of policy options. Moreover, assessments, such as the GEO-5 report, provide a fundamental shift in the way environmental issues are analysed, with consideration given to the drivers of global change rather than pressures on the environment.
Assessment frameworks, like the Drivers, Pressure, State, Impact and Responses (DPSIR) framework in GEO-5, identify and evaluate the complex and multidimensional cause-and-effect relationships between society and the environment.
Assessments are moving from one-off reports towards continuing assessment processes with regular reporting to provide updates on the changing environmental situation, the effectiveness of policy actions, and the policy pathways that can ensure a more sustainable future. Some policy actions might be based on findings from the assessment (enabling the evaluation of effectiveness), but the assessment can also report other policies that influence drivers of systemic change (e.g. perverse subsidies). Continuing assessment generally reduces the size of reports because the updates are based on accumulated experience and improved data collection and processing. Indicators are often used to signal the key findings relevant to policy.
An assessment may also need to be tailored according to where the environmental issue is in the policy cycle to focus on the relevant audience. An emerging issue may need to be documented as important, and then evidence assembled to stimulate action to resolve it. An integrated assessment will identify drivers and pressures causing the issue and options for prevention and mitigation. For a mature issue, monitoring of progress or recovery will become the focus of the assessment to demonstrate policy effectiveness.
Producing an assessment of this scale requires many generous contributions. The following organizations have provided funding to the seventh edition of the Global Environment Outlook.
This project is co-funded by the European Union.
