No Plan B: The Importance of Environmental Considerations in Humanitarian Contexts

Humanitarians understand the importance and urgency of the environmental agenda, and they have a clear desire to incorporate environmental considerations into their work. However, they are hindered in their endeavours by multiple challenges. This study examines these challenges, as well as key opportunities for change and development.

Overall, this review showed a conflation of climate change and environmental degradation within organisational rhetoric. While climate change can lead to environmental degradation, environmental issues (such as soil erosion) cannot always be solved by reducing organisations’ carbon footprint. In order to adequately respond to the complex demands of including environmental considerations into humanitarian work, organisations must have a clear definition of the two issues and how they relate to one another.