Safeguards, Co-Benefits & SDGs
The environmental and social problems we face are deeply interconnected. Designing solutions that address these issues requires careful attention to avoid creating new problems while solving existing ones. This principle is embodied in the phrase: "Do no harm."
At its core, this principle ensures that projects are developed in a way that minimizes harm to both the environment and society. To achieve this, project developers should:
Conduct Environmental and Social Risk Assessments
Project developers are expected to carry out thorough environmental and social risk assessments aligned with IFC Safeguard Standards. These assessments should identify, evaluate, and address potential adverse impacts associated with the project — both direct and indirect.
Developers must engage local stakeholders early in the process to better understand potential effects on communities, ecosystems, and livelihoods. Risks may arise not only from core activities but also from predictable yet unplanned developments. Assessments should inform the design and implementation of appropriate safeguards to prevent, reduce or manage harm.
Have a Robust Stakeholder Engagement Processes
Project developers must design and implement a comprehensive stakeholder engagement process that prioritizes meaningful participation, especially from Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized or vulnerable communities who may be affected by the project. This process should demonstrate a genuine commitment to transparency, responsiveness, and benefit-sharing.
Key components include:
Stakeholder Engagement Plans: Developers must establish a clear plan outlining how stakeholders will be identified, engaged, and kept informed throughout the project lifecycle. Special attention should be given to groups that may face barriers to participation.
Consultation Meetings: Prior to implementation, project proponents should conduct collaborative, inclusive consultation meetings to inform stakeholders, solicit feedback, and address concerns. These meetings should:
Be conducted in the local language(s) and tailored to the cultural context;
Be publicized through both traditional and digital media with ample notice to encourage broad participation;
Be thoroughly documented with transcripts made publicly available to support transparency and accountability, if applicable.
Grievance Mechanism: A clear, accessible grievance redress mechanism must be in place.
Project developers must make contact information readily available and maintain an open line of communication throughout the project duration.
They must have a clear plan for incorporating grievances and feedback into their operations that gets articulated to the stakeholders.
Benefit-Sharing Commitments: These plans should reflect community priorities and demonstrate how benefits—whether financial, infrastructural, or capacity-building—will be distributed fairly and transparently. Benefit-sharing agreements should be made in conversation with stakeholders to ensure needs are adequately met.
Mitigate Risks with Safeguards
After identifying potential impacts, project developers should develop management protocols to mitigate these risks effectively. While safeguards are project-specific, developers should:
Do the work to understand local contexts, including land use regulations, policies, and management methods (especially for REDD+ and land based projects).
Seek guidance from reputable sources to gain a background knowledge of key safeguard areas.
Incorporate FPIC (free, prior and informed consent) principles.
Ensure they are aligned with international laws. Specifically, they should review and align to the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Bill of Human Rights.
Labor rights and working conditions
Health and safety
The health and safety of workers must be ensured by project proponents. This includes providing safe and healthy working conditions.
Labor laws
Project developers must protect and uphold legal rights of workers. They must demonstrate adherance to international standards and be able to produce relevant labor rights documentation.
Child Labor
Projects must not employ people under the age of 15 and agree to comply with age-related legal frameworks.
Project developers must be able to provide documentation that children are not employed or economically exploited, exposed to health conditions, or negatively impacted in terms of education or social development.
Risks of child labor being exploited throughout the supply chain should be addressed.
Fair Treatment
Project developers must avoid discrimination and ensure equal opportunities for workers.
Contract workers
Contract workers must also be protected. Workers are allowed to join or form worker's organizations without retaliation.
Resource efficiency and Pollution Prevention
Project developers must ensure that they are taking steps to reduce pollutant emissions, polluting water discharges and waste, noise vibrations, and generation of waste including hazardous materials, pesticides and fertilizers.
Where applicable, projects should monitor water usage against baselines. Effort should be taken to ensure water usage is kept to a minimum.
Land rights and involuntary resettlements
Avoided economic and physical displacement
Economic displacement includes loss of land, access to assets, income sources, or means of livelihoods due to project activities.
Phyiscal displacement includes evictions, acquisition, rehabilitation, demolition of property, or expiration of covenants housing.
Project developers must describe any potential reasons for economic or physical displacement due to implementing their project. They must then describe their plans to address these risks and provide documentation of mitigation plans for physical displacement.
Where necessary, projects should make a substantial effort to provide adequate shelter, safety, education and economic opportunitiies for those affected.
Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management
If applicable, project developers are encouraged to conduct biodiversity baseline assessments in order to monitor potential impacts.
This includes assessing and monitoring number of species (flora and fauna) within project boundaries.
Project developers should particularly note any species categorized as IUCN threatened and endangered species that might be impact by their operations.
Biodiversity Threats
Project developers are required to describe threats to biodiversity that might arise due to the project. This includes impacts on terrestrial and marine biodiversity and ecosystems. They should specify which species might experience habitat fragmentation due to their project.
If it's not feasible to avoid the impacts all together, project developers must describe how they plan to minimize them.
Projects must avoid converting high conservation value habitats (such as natural forests, grasslands, wetlands).
Biodiversity Benefits
Project developers should describe how their project contributes positively to biodiversity— including ecosystem services.
Project developers should prioritize the protection of habitats of rare, threatened, and endagered species. Projects should contribute to habitat connectivity where possible.
Benefits should be monitored. These can be measured by assessing how the habitiat for species has increased due to project activities.
Project developers should be able to describe practices used to increase soil health — including monitoring techniques employed to be able to assess potential impacts.
Human rights and indigenous peoples
Project developers must demonstrate respect for the rights, interests, and lievelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Project developers should ensure they're aligning with FPIC (free, prior and informed consent) principles during project consultations.
Identification of Rights Holders and Stakeholders
Project proponents must identify all Indigenous Peoples and local communities who may be directly or indirectly affected by the project. This includes:
Mapping of local communities and Indigenous territories within or near the project boundary.
Documentation of all identified stakeholders and their respective rights claims.
Indigenous and Local Knowledge
Projects must show how Indigenous and local knowledge has been incorporated into project design and monitoring, particularly when it affects land use, natural resource management, or community resilience.
Cite specific consultations or collaborations with traditional knowledge holders.
Include co-developed approaches or monitoring practices where relevant.
Culutral Heritage Safeguards
Where applicable, the developer should adhere to recognized frameworks such as community-led heritage management plans and the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, prioritizing free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and locally defined values of cultural significance.
Indirect and Cumulative Impacts
Proponents must identify and assess any indirect or unintended impacts on IPLCs or their cultural heritage. This includes:
Potential changes in land use patterns, migration, economic displacement, or increased pressure on local resources.
Provisions to monitor these risks over time and implement corrective actions when needed.
Clear articulation of how Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) principles were applied, where relevant.
Land and Territorial Safeguards
Projects must demonstrate there are no adverse impacts to land and territorial rights. This includes:
Procedures to confirm legal or customary land rights are not infringed upon.
Independent verification of land tenure status, including Indigenous claims.
Mechanisms to resolve land disputes fairly and transparently.
Local Employment & Economic Inclusion
The project must describe how it contributes to local employment and economic benefits, including:
Hiring practices that prioritize local communities.
Support for local enterprises, supply chains, and capacity-building efforts.
Gender equity
Projects must demonstrate that gender equity and social inclusion are fully integrated into governance, design, and implementation.
Projects must ensure meaningful participation of women, non-binary, and gender-diverse individuals in governance and decision-making processes.
Projects must provide equal economic opportunities across all genders and ensure non-discriminatory hiring, promotion, and wage practices.
Projects must adopt a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment and gender-based violence, in accordance with international human rights standards.
Projects must ensure that benefits (e.g., job creation, capacity building, financial returns, land access) are equitably distributed and accessible to all genders.
Cancun Safeguards
REDD+ should ensure they are aligned with the Cancun Safeguards established by the UNFCCC.
Beyond "Do No Harm" + Create Co-Benefits
The principle of "do no harm" can evolve into "create co-benefits" or initiatives that go beyond harm prevention to deliver added value to biodiversity and communities. Co-benefits can include:
Promoting ecosystem services and biodiversity,
Generating local employment opportunities,
Enaging in benefit sharing.
Benefit Sharing
Project developers should establish equitable forms of sharing the revenues from their projects with local communities. This could look like:
Funding sustainable infrastructure, enhancing community resilience to climate change,
Fostering job creation.
This should be implemented in collaboration with project developers to ensure the plan meets their needs and establishes long-term trust.
Alignment to Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs), established by the UN Development Program, provide a framework for addressing humanity's most pressing issues. With 17 goals spanning themes like the biosphere, society, and economy, SDGs encourage organizations to contribute meaningfully to global progress.
Measuring Impact on SDGs
There are different ways of assessing how a project aligns with these goals. A project developer can reference the list of indicators for each goal to discern how their project fits in. Project developers should consider how to go above and beyond Goal 13 (Action against climate change).
Monitoring and Validation
To ensure accountability, SDG impacts must be:
Monitored and Quantified after project implementation,
Validated by an accredited VVB during project validation.
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