UNHCR’s Smart Fleet Programme Makes the UN’s Largest Fleet More Sustainable

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) works on reducing its own environmental footprint, including through the greening of its offices, supply chain, fleet and travel, under the fourth objective of its Focus Area Strategic Plan for Climate Action.

UNHCR’s fleet is composed of about 7,000 light, heavy, and other specialized vehicles worldwide, making it the largest fleet operator in the UN system. These vehicles are indispensable for delivering humanitarian assistance, but they are also a major contributor to UNHCR’s CO2 emissions, accounting for 16.2% of the total, based on data from the 2024 Greening the Blue Report. 

To reduce the environmental impact of necessary vehicle travel and to support the organization’s wider climate action efforts, UNHCR has introduced a Smart Fleet Programme which aims to reduce its number of vehicles and to lower its CO2 emissions.  A key component of the programme is ridesharing, which coordinates and unites separate vehicle bookings when UNHCR personnel travel to the same or nearby locations. By reducing the number of vehicles travelling on the same route, unnecessary CO2 emissions can be avoided. 

An Innovative and Optimal Fleet Strategy 

The deployment of Smart Fleet Ridesharing is achieved through the implementation of effective operational procedures on fleet management, an advanced technology platform and a comprehensive training programme. These measures ensure that UNHCR operations have the tools necessary to optimize their fleet usage.  

In coordination with its operations, UNHCR develops standard operating procedures and shares best practices from across UNHCR and other entities. As every UNHCR operation is unique, collaboration is crucial to tailor procedures to individual needs and the local operational context.

    
This Smart Fleet programme leverages an innovative vehicle booking and dispatch technology platform called UN Mobility, developed by the World Food Programme. This platform automates the booking and dispatch process and helps the team to identify opportunities for ridesharing.   

Finally, a comprehensive training programme ensures that UNHCR personnel have the skills they need to optimize the use of UNHCR vehicles while continuing to provide the transportation on which UNHCR teams depend to implement programmes for forcibly displaced and stateless people.  

Ridesharing Cutting Costs and CO2 Emissions

The benefits of this programme are evident. Ridesharing optimizes the usage of resources, including vehicles and fuel, which reduces CO2 emissions and costs, all while increasing the availability of personnel and fleet to provide humanitarian assistance. In addition, in rapidly changing circumstances, such as emergency responses, ridesharing provides a structure to help operations to quickly scale up fleet movements.
 
Since its launch and scale up in November 2022, ridesharing through the Smart Fleet programme has been implemented at 160 UNHCR offices, reducing CO2 emissions by more than 500 tonnes and costs by over US$ 700,000.   

Once fully implemented across all UNHCR operations, ridesharing through Smart Fleet is expected to generate annual savings of about US$ 955,000, as well as CO2 emission reductions of about 960 tonnes per year, based on the annual cost and emissions reductions of the current roll out. 
 
The savings generated from ride sharing are channelled back to UNHCR’s programmes, allowing their teams to provide additional support to people forced to flee their homes and people without a nationality.  

Collaborative Action for Sustainable Fleet Use 

Collaboration among UN entities with ridesharing initiatives to optimize fleet management has been a key approach to accelerating the roll out across the UN system. Embracing this approach, UNHCR participates in a monthly forum with other UN entities to share expertise and learn from each other’s experiences. In addition, UNHCR invites colleagues from other entities to participate in training programmes on ridesharing, unlocking the power of knowledge sharing and collaboration to the benefit of all participating UN entities. In the longer term, further CO2 reductions could be achieved through inter-agency carpooling where vehicles and drivers are shared between UN entities. This is an approach already being piloted by UNHCR, World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Iraq.

Banner image: the first time UNHCR colleagues travelled using Smart Fleet ridesharing in the Yola Field Office, in Adamawa, Nigeria, April 2024. © UNHCR/Rowan Veale 

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