NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

The partnership between UNEP
and the ETH Zurich
In November 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and the ETH Zurich signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) to formally establish cooperation
between the two institutions. On the side of the ETH Zurich,
the North-South Centre was given the operative mandate
for the implementation of the MoU.
In 2008, an interdisciplinary research group coordinated by
Stefanie Hellweg developed several interlinked projects
on assessing and compensating the ecosystem impacts
of biophysical products in a North-South context. The
projects were accepted for funding by the ETH Zurich
research commission and started in 2009. An outline
of the projects is presented on the following pages. In
the light of this interdisciplinary research programme,
the MoU was renewed in 2009 with a sharper focus on
the ongoing activities. The collaboration between the ETH
Zurich and UNEP is now focused on, but not limited to:
investigating sustainable management of ecosystems
through compensating ecosystem damage by global
offsetting schemes, including payments for ecosystem
services and their monetary valuation;
classifying critical ecosystem services with particular
emphasis on regulating functions;
assessing environmental changes and trends, as well
as interlinkages between the natural environment and
socio-economic processes at different spatial scales;
analysing sustainable production and consumption, notably
through life cycle assessment;
setting-up a library of case studies in which the developed
methodologies are applied and the offsetting
scheme is elaborated.
Stefanie Hellweg, Michael Curran, Francesca Verones (all
from the Institute of Environmental Engineering) with
Barbara Becker and Manfred Kaufmann (both from the
management team of the North-South Centre) formed a de-
legation of the ETH Zurich who attended a kick-off workshop
at the UNEP headquarter in Nairobi in June 2009. The workshop
allowed the delegation to present and discuss the projects
conducted at the ETH Zurich and to receive feedback
from UNEP representatives of different divisions, namely the
Division on Early Warning and Assessment and the Division
of Technology, Industry and Economics. As an immediate result
of the workshop, three thematic feedback groups were
established: on land, on water and on offsetting. These
groups will form an advisory board for the three doctoral
theses and provide feedback to intermediary results. UNEP
suggested various case studies for the ETH research projects.
It was also agreed that UNEP representatives will try to
formally include the ETH projects in the UNEP Programme
of Work. In addition, the workshop allowed the establishing
or intensification of contacts with several high-ranking
UNEP officials, among them Angela Cropper, UNEP Deputy
Executive Director, who agreed to come as keynote speaker
to the “Tropentag 2010” in Zurich.
For UNEP, the partnership with the ETH Zurich is an important
element in the ongoing initiative of strengthening the
science-policy interface by bringing scientists and policymakers
together. The ETH Zurich will benefit from the network
of UNEP in disseminating research results worldwide
and enhancing the application of the developed methods.
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Research collaboration
UNEP