Overall, a profound lack of data on the carbon footprint of relief activities makes it difficult to understand problems and share solutions. The availability, consistency, and quality of emissions information all pose immense challenges for anyone seeking to complete a carbon audit of a humanitarian response mission (9). So far, emissions assessments are performed on a case-by-case basis, and most focus only on home-country operations. For example, Mercy Corps has completed a Climate Change Impact Assessment, but the evaluation omits carbon emissions “associated with emergency operations (such as the delivery and provision of material aid) and emissions associated with other parties (such as partners or donors of the material aid)” (10).

While performing emissions audits of home-country offices is a start, agencies can and should reach higher. The UN’s “Greening the Blue” campaign serves as a model for measuring and acting on emissions, but few others have made such far-reaching commitments (11). A comprehensive carbon inventory would cover the lifecycle of the mission, calculating the footprint of the responding organizations’ headquarters activities, the CO2 cost of field-country operations, and the emissions generated by beneficiaries using the services delivered (for example, cooking fuel used in refugee camps). Humanitarian agencies have piloted rapid environmental impact assessments on the ground, but these tools do not include comprehensive carbon inventories (12).

Though detailed carbon accounting adds to overhead costs, it is a vital step toward reducing the footprint of humanitarian response. Emergency aid organizations have a long way to go in understanding how they contribute to climate change, and until clear data exists quantifying the carbon emissions of disaster relief activities, efforts to mitigate impact will remain piecemeal at best.

Integrating Sustainable Solutions

When it comes to lowering the carbon cost of response, opportunities and obstacles abound. Pre-positioning materials and personnel can help prevent international air transport, and effective fleet management can reduce fuel use. INSEAD’s Haiti study suggests that 17,000 tons of CO2 could have been saved if pre-positioning had been 20 percent higher (13). The UN World Food Programme (WFP) attributes its “biggest single source of GHG savings” to smart fleet management (14). In Afghanistan, new software has helped them reduce diesel consumption by 25 percent since 2008 (15).

Integrating renewable energy into relief programs and strategies would also yield huge benefits. An estimated 6.85 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (mtCO2eq)—more than double the annual emissions of Washington, D.C.— could be saved per year through widespread introduction of improved cookstoves and basic solar lanterns in refugee camps (16,17).

For many humanitarian agencies and donors, the upfront investment in mitigation may appear daunting, but the long-term payoff is clear. Heavy carbon emissions are linked to operational inefficiencies. By streamlining travel plans, supply chains, vehicle dispatch, and utility usage, aid organizations serve themselves as well as the earth. WFP has saved $400,000 by delivering remote training sessions, and the British Red Cross has saved £497,000 since 2009 by reducing electricity and gas consumption (18,19). The estimated 6.85 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (mtCO2eq) reduced through improved cookstoves and basic solar lanterns in refugee camps would also save $323 million a year in fuel costs (20).

Operational changes have their limitations, however. In unstable, low-tech settings, humanitarian agencies hoping to reduce emissions are constrained by urgency, reliability, and security. Disasters cannot be managed solely through videoconference, and Tesla has yet to invent an electric armored vehicle. Greening supply chains, reducing international travel, and using renewable energy are all steps in the right direction, but for the time being, certain humanitarian activities will remain emissions intensive by technical default.

While a zero-carbon response is currently unfeasible, agencies can offset their irreducible emissions by purchasing carbon credits (21). To achieve climate neutrality, WFP offset over 160,000 mtCO2eq from 2014 by financing renewable energy and conservation projects that reduce emissions elsewhere. One program distributes fuel-efficient cookstoves that reduce firewood usage to combat deforestation in Ethiopia (22). As humanitarian organizations work to reduce the direct CO2 emissions of their response activities, they can reach climate neutrality through carbon offsetting.