Emissions from procurement of goods and services account for almost 50% of the sector-wide carbon footprint.[1]For individual humanitarian organisations, this share can go up to 75%. Given the importance of tackling procurement-related emissions, it is key to focus efforts on top items as well as the most relevant decarbonisation levers.

Whilst some organisations have started to perform lifecycle analyses in order to identify the areas where actions will lead to the highest impact reductions, results are often not public or too specific. This gap in publicly available data makes it difficult for humanitarian organisations to identify the sources of the environmental impact in their activities and value chains.

This session will provide participants with go-to resources on lifecycle analyses, including recently released results of the joint ICRC/Climate Action Accelerator/EPFL project on LCAs of essential household items, a study performed by the WREC in collaboration with KLU and CHORD on measuring the GHG emissions of humanitarian supply chains[2], as well as learnings from LCA projects of individual organisations. Panellists will also discuss the opportunities and limitations of lifecycle analyses and explore how results can and are already being taken into account in procurement decisions.