Dictionary

An emissions trajectory designed to limit warming to around 1.5°C, with no or limited overshoot, by rapidly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and reaching net zero carbon dioxide globally.

An urban planning model in which residents can reach everyday essential services — work, shops, schools, healthcare, culture and leisure — within about 15 minutes on foot or by bicycle.

24/7 carbon-free energy is an approach that seeks to match electricity consumption with carbon-free electricity supply on an hourly or similarly granular basis.

(Indicadores Básicos de Sostenibilidad) — mandatory baseline indicator set defined by CINIF: metrics across emissions, energy, water, waste, workforce, safety, diversity, corruption incidents.

The 30x30 target is a global conservation ambition to conserve or protect at least 30 percent of land and sea areas by 2030.

Collective term for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold — four minerals whose extraction and trade have been linked to financing armed conflict, and which are covered by dedicated due diligence legislation.

4C is a sustainability certification system for the coffee sector based on a common code and verification approach.

The 1998 UNECE treaty guaranteeing public rights to environmental information, participation in decision-making and access to justice.

Land and water degraded by past mining where no responsible party remains to clean it up, posing safety and pollution hazards that typically require publicly funded reclamation.

The reduction or avoidance of emissions of greenhouse gases or other pollutants, widely used in climate policy as a synonym for mitigation, though without a single agreed definition.

The cost of reducing one unit of emissions, usually expressed per tonne of CO₂-equivalent; ranking measures by this cost produces a marginal abatement cost curve.

Abiotic depletion is an impact category concerned with the use or depletion of non-living natural resources such as minerals, metals or fossil resources.

The rate at which workers are absent from work because of incapacity of any kind, used as an indicator of workforce health, wellbeing and working conditions.

A state in which an economy grows while the environmental pressure it causes falls in absolute terms — the form of decoupling that genuine green growth requires.

An absolute target is a goal expressed as a total amount of change, regardless of changes in production, revenue or activity levels.

Access and benefit sharing refers to arrangements for accessing genetic resources or associated knowledge and sharing benefits arising from their use.

The timely and affordable ability to choose and obtain quality, appropriate production resources and services needed for a farming system.

The capability to reach and participate in markets on informed, reliable and fair terms, with realistic choice over buyers, products and conditions of exchange.

Accessibility is the design of environments, products, services, information or workplaces so people with disabilities and diverse needs can use them.

A relationship in which an actor must explain and justify decisions or performance to others who can question the account and trigger correction, consequence or remedy.

A civil-society coalition that publishes the Accountability Framework — consensus-based guidance for companies to set, implement and disclose commitments on deforestation, ecosystem conversion and human rights.

Accountability to affected populations is the practice of ensuring people affected by decisions or programmes can receive information, give feedback and influence outcomes.

A third-party attestation that a conformity-assessment body is competent to perform specified assessment tasks within a defined scope.

An accreditation body is an organisation that assesses and recognises the competence of conformity assessment bodies against specified standards.

for actual installation-level emissions

A core quality principle for emissions and sustainability data: reported values should be systematically neither over- nor understated, with uncertainty reduced as far as practicable.

The outflow of acidic, metal-rich water from mine sites, formed when sulphide minerals such as pyrite are exposed to air and water; a persistent legacy mining pollution problem.

Acidification potential is an impact category estimating the contribution of emissions to acidifying effects on soils, water bodies or ecosystems.

The UN climate regime's term for work under Article 6 of the UNFCCC and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement: education, awareness, training, participation, access to information and international cooperation.

Active ownership is the use of investor rights and influence, including engagement and voting, to affect company behaviour or stewardship outcomes.

Travel by physically active means — chiefly walking and cycling — undertaken in place of motorised trips, delivering public health benefits while cutting transport emissions.

An investment strategy in which shareholders use their ownership rights to press companies for change, increasingly including environmental, social and governance objectives.

A quantitative measure of an activity that results in greenhouse gas emissions — such as fuel burned or kilometres travelled — which is multiplied by an emission factor to calculate emissions.

Poisoning caused by short-term exposure to pesticides, a major occupational and public health problem concentrated among farmers and farmworkers in low- and middle-income countries.

The capacity of a substance to cause harm from a single or short-term exposure, classified under the UN Globally Harmonized System into five hazard categories for each exposure route.

A report that countries submit under the Paris Agreement setting out their adaptation priorities, implementation and support needs, plans and actions, recorded in a public UNFCCC registry.

Adaptation finance is funding directed toward reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience to actual or expected climate impacts.

A UN climate fund established under the Kyoto Protocol to finance concrete adaptation projects in developing countries, serving the Paris Agreement since 2019 and known for pioneering direct access.

The difference between what is needed for adequate climate adaptation — in finance, planning and implementation — and what is actually being provided or done.

The ability of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage from climate change, take advantage of opportunities, or respond to consequences.

A structured, iterative approach to managing natural resources in which policies are treated as hypotheses and management actions as experiments, enabling learning under uncertainty.

The conversion of existing buildings or structures to new uses, preserving heritage value and avoiding the demolition waste and embodied carbon of new construction.

Additionality is the test of whether an emissions reduction or removal would not have occurred without the carbon finance, intervention or incentive being claimed.

The extent to which an intervention causes an outcome beyond what would reasonably have occurred under the applicable baseline, law, common practice or existing incentives.

Additionality in energy describes whether a purchase, project or intervention causes renewable or low-carbon energy generation beyond what would otherwise have occurred.

Product-level environmental benefit claim requires testing **before** the claim; test must fit the claim's representation

An adequate wage is pay assessed as sufficient under the applicable legal, collective-bargaining or normative framework, which may not be identical to a living wage.

A World Bank indicator that adjusts national savings for investment in education and for the depletion of natural resources and pollution damage, as a test of sustainable development.

Workplace safety measures that change the way people work — such as rotation, scheduling and procedures — ranked as the fourth tier of the hierarchy of hazard controls.

defined against Part I/Part II of the Annex (international conventions: ICCPR, ICESCR, ILO core, Minamata, Stockholm POPs, Basel, CBD…)

adverse environmental impact or adverse human rights impact (3(1)(d))

Adverse impacts are negative effects on people, the environment, rights, communities or systems connected to an organisation, product, activity or relationship.

**31 indicators** aligned with GRI/SSE model guidance; **DFM ESG Reporting Guide** — **32 indicators**; both voluntary-but-encouraged, covering GHG intensity, energy mix, water, gender pay ratio, employee turnover, injury rate, board diversity, CEO pay ratio, anti-corruption disclosures.

Affected communities are groups of people whose rights, wellbeing, livelihoods, environment or cultural heritage may be changed by an organisation's operations or value chain.

Afforestation is the establishment of forest on land that has not recently been forested, subject to the definition and time period used by the relevant framework.

Afforestation, reforestation and revegetation are land-based activities that establish or restore vegetation cover and may generate climate claims when measured against defined rules.

Agenda 2030 is the United Nations sustainable development agenda that includes the Sustainable Development Goals and related commitments.

Aggregation and disaggregation concern when information is combined for reporting and when it is separated to preserve material differences.

An aggregator is an actor that combines products, materials or data from multiple sources before sale, processing or onward transfer.

The variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms — at genetic, species and ecosystem levels — that sustains food production and the functioning of agricultural ecosystems.

Greenhouse gas emissions from crop production and livestock — dominated by methane and nitrous oxide rather than CO₂ — making agriculture a distinct mitigation challenge.

An approach to farming and food systems that applies ecological principles — diversity, recycling, synergy and local knowledge — framed by FAO's 10 Elements adopted by 197 member countries in 2019.

A land-management system in which woody perennials are deliberately integrated with crops or livestock so the components interact ecologically and economically over space or time.

An AI system that can plan and take actions toward a goal with some autonomy; an emerging layer in software workflows.

The greenhouse-gas emissions associated with AI systems across hardware manufacture, training and operation.

Applying machine learning to assess physical and transition climate risks to assets, portfolios and supply chains.

A false or unsupported AI-generated output presented as reliable; often called an AI hallucination.

Detecting forest loss and degradation from satellite imagery with machine learning, supporting enforcement and zero-deforestation commitments.

The electricity used to train and run AI models, concentrated in data centres and growing with model scale.

Applying AI to species identification, habitat mapping and ecosystem monitoring in support of conservation goals.

A movement and platform, anchored by the ITU, promoting AI applications that advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

AI governance is the set of policies, roles, controls and review processes used to manage the responsible use of artificial intelligence systems.

Using AI to balance electricity supply and demand, dispatch storage and integrate variable renewables.

The mining, manufacturing and logistics behind chips and servers, linking AI to critical minerals, energy and labour issues.

Using machine learning to screen and design new materials, accelerating batteries, catalysts and low-carbon alternatives.

Exaggerating or misrepresenting AI capabilities or benefits in claims; increasingly applied to sustainability marketing.

The freshwater consumed by data centres and power generation supporting AI, mainly for cooling and electricity production.

Machine-learning models that generate weather forecasts, increasingly matching or extending conventional numerical methods.

Machine-learning analysis of satellite data to track land use, oceans, ice and environmental change.

Using AI to generate, amplify or give false credibility to misleading environmental claims.

Aid effectiveness is the assessment of how well development assistance achieves intended results while respecting ownership, alignment, coordination and accountability principles.

The contamination of indoor or outdoor air by chemical, physical or biological agents, responsible for millions of premature deaths each year and the largest environmental threat to human health.

The condition of the air in a given place, measured against pollutant benchmarks such as the WHO global air quality guidelines, which were tightened substantially in 2021.

An air quality index is a public communication scale that translates measured air pollution levels into categories of health or exposure concern.

A measure of how much sunlight a surface reflects back into space; declines in Earth's albedo — from melting ice to changing clouds — amplify warming through a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

An algal bloom is a rapid increase in algae in a water body, often linked to nutrient enrichment and sometimes associated with reduced water quality or harmful toxins.

A defined set of rules or steps a computer follows to solve a problem; the building block underlying every AI system.

Holding organisations answerable for the outcomes of the algorithms they deploy, including environmental and social harms.

Independent examination of an algorithm's behaviour and impacts, extending assurance practice to AI systems.

Algorithmic bias is a systematic distortion in automated outputs that can arise from data, design choices, assumptions or deployment context.

The use of algorithms to make or support decisions, with consequences for accountability in sustainability and social outcomes.

A structured evaluation of an automated decision system's effects before deployment, covering rights, equity and environment.

The use of algorithms to direct, monitor and evaluate workers, with implications for decent work in supply chains.

The deliberate process of making strategies, requirements, incentives, data or actions consistent enough to support a shared objective without necessarily making them identical.

The most established and widely deployed technology for producing hydrogen by splitting water with electricity, using an aqueous alkaline electrolyte.

An agroforestry practice in which crops are grown in the alleys between rows of trees or shrubs, which are pruned for mulch, fodder or timber and help maintain soil fertility.

The Alliance for Water Stewardship is a standard-setting and membership organisation focused on responsible water use and catchment-level water stewardship.

A negotiating coalition of 39 small island and low-lying coastal states that has shaped global climate diplomacy, most notably by championing the 1.5°C temperature goal.

Allocation is the partitioning of inputs, outputs or impacts among co-products, functions or systems in an assessment.

A small rented plot of land, typically provided by a local council, on which an individual or household grows fruit, vegetables or flowers mainly for their own consumption.

The active, ongoing practice of using one's own position or privilege to advocate with — not merely for — people from marginalised or underrepresented groups.

The diversity of species within a single site, habitat or community — the local scale in Whittaker's classic three-level framework for measuring biodiversity.

A lightweight, indefinitely recyclable metal whose primary production is highly energy- and emissions-intensive, making recycled content the central lever for its sustainability.

The level, scale or pace of improvement an organisation seeks to achieve relative to a sustainability challenge, benchmark or pathway.

The shortfall between the emissions cuts countries have pledged and the reductions needed to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goals.

A US-based non-profit carbon crediting programme, founded in 1996 as the world's first private voluntary greenhouse gas registry, operating in both voluntary and compliance markets.

amfori BSCI is a supply-chain social compliance programme focused on improving working conditions through a common code of conduct and monitoring approach.

A nitrogen-hydrogen compound essential to fertiliser production — currently made mainly from fossil fuels with significant emissions — and a candidate low-emission fuel and hydrogen carrier.

Anaerobic digestion is a biological process in which microorganisms break down organic material without oxygen, producing biogas and digestate.

In Philippine law, the territories held by indigenous peoples since time immemorial under native title — recognised as private but communal property that cannot be sold or disposed of.

The physical and mental state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies, governed internationally by WOAH standards and the Five Freedoms.

An emerging electrolyser technology that combines features of alkaline and PEM systems, aiming for low-cost, flexible green hydrogen production without precious-metal catalysts.

A UNFCCC country category covering the industrialised nations of 1992 plus economies in transition, which carry specific mitigation and reporting obligations under the Convention.

The UNFCCC category of OECD-member developed countries obliged to provide finance and technology transfer to developing countries for climate action.

An IEA World Energy Outlook scenario that assumes all government climate pledges — including net zero targets — are implemented in full and on time.

Annual matching is the matching of electricity consumption and energy attributes over a year, even when timing and location may differ.

Anomaly detection is the identification of data points, events or patterns that differ materially from expected behaviour or normal ranges.

The transformation of data so that no individual is identifiable by means reasonably likely to be used, taking the data, available auxiliary information and context into account.

A proposed — and widely used but formally rejected — name for a geological epoch defined by dominant human influence on Earth's systems.

Meaning "caused or produced by human activity" — the qualifier that distinguishes human-driven environmental change, such as most modern greenhouse gas emissions, from natural variation.