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The Global Environment Facility Council approved in December 2024 an exciting sustainable tourism initiative that will be led by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The ultimate goal of the iCOAST (Integrated Collaborative Approaches to Sustainable Tourism) program is to reduce pollution of water, soil, and air; reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses; reduce the over-consumption of natural resources, products, and materials; and reverse the tourism sector’s impact on biodiversity loss, while creating equitable livelihoods and jobs for local communities.

In 2014 the Global Environment Facility launched an ambitious effort to influence a shift in supply chains for beef, soy, and palm oil towards reduced-deforestation production, while delivering continued social and economic development to farmers and their communities.

The governments of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Viet Nam have joined forces to fight chemical pollution, launching a joint $43 million program to manage and reduce hazardous chemicals in their textile industries.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) this week approved $3.8 million to support the restoration, conservation, and management of coral reefs in four countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The project, financed by the Asia-Pacific Climate Finance Fund (ACliFF) and the Global Environment Facility will develop climate risk financing and insurance solutions to protect coral reef ecosystems in Fiji, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Solomon Islands.

Lauren Naville Gisnås is a Senior Advisor on environmental and climate-related issues at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and an Advisor to Norway’s GEF Council Member. In an interview, she reflected on the potential of global efforts to address marine litter, plastic pollution, and the impacts of climate change, and shared what inspired her from a recent visit to a GEF Small Grants Programme initiative in Indonesia.