Source: Un Women
In response to the Secretary-General’s call to move towards a paperless UN system and reduce the organization’s costs and carbon footprint, UN Women went Paper-Smart at its Executive Board session from 28-30 November, 2012 – and the initiative is now being replicated during the First Regular Session of the UN Women Executive Board, 23-24 January, 2013.

In 2012, UN Women saved an estimated USD 100,000 for that Executive Board session alone, which will be re-directed to improving lives of women and girls at the country level.

Statistics show that the Executive Board Paper-Smart web pages got about 1,200 visitors, from several countries in the five regions during the Board session. This enhanced the transparency of the Board proceedings while preventing the copying and printing by UN Women and partners of hundreds of thousands of paper.

The Paper-Smart Board session enabled multilingual and real-time access to documents and statements from Member States as well as active participation in New York, capitals and UN Women offices all around the world.

Member States expressed appreciation for UN Women’s leadership in ensuring that Board sessions are run in a manner that saves financial resources– mostly voluntary contributions– and puts into practice recommendations of the Rio+20 Summit on sustainable development.

The Paper-Smart Services were provided to the session by the ISPS (Integrated Sustainable Paper-Smart Services) Secretariat of the Meetings and Publishing Division, Department of the General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM).

Other Executive Boards of Funds and Programmes are joining the environmentally friendly initiative. Already it has been agreed that the Joint Meeting of the Executive Boards of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS, UNICEF, UN Women and WFP will be held in a Paper-Smart manner in February 2013.