What we do · Environmental and social management systems
Safeguards that work, not boxes to tick
An environmental and social management system is not a binder for the accreditation panel. It is how an organization decides, keeps track and corrects course, on real projects.
Green Climate Fund accreditation, development bank requirements and donor due diligence all ask the same question: do your environmental and social commitments form a system? One that is triggered in a predictable order, leaves a trace, and is proportionate to the size, nature and location of your activities.
Most organizations already hold many of the pieces: a policy, safeguarding, grievance mechanisms, procurement rules, monitoring and incident management. What is missing is rarely the documents. It is the link between them, and the proof that they work. Our job is to connect what exists, close the real gaps and make the whole demonstrable, without building a parallel system that field teams will never use.
Four principles
Start from what exists
Much of the system often already runs under other names: accountability to affected populations, safeguarding, emergency preparedness. We translate it into the language of safeguards before building anything new.
Fit for purpose
The system must match the risk level of your activities, not a single model. An oversized system is as poor a signal as an incomplete one: it announces a system the organization will not keep up.
Built to be used
Procedures are written for the teams who apply them, with a decision point, an owner and an expected trace at each step. The result should make their work smoother, not add a layer.
Proof, not paper
Accreditation looks for a track record: evidence that the system has worked on real activities. We separate system gaps, which take months to close, from demonstration gaps, which usually take weeks.
How an assignment runs
A typical sequence, adjusted to each organization. Assessment always comes before any document is written.
Scoping
The environmental and social risk category you are aiming for, the type of access, the submission horizon, and a check of the requirements in force at the start of the work.
Mapping what exists
Every policy, procedure and tool, from headquarters to the field: which part of the system it belongs to, how binding it is, who it applies to, and whether it leaves a trace a third party can verify. Unwritten practices are flagged too: formalizing a habit costs less than installing a new procedure.
Maturity assessment and gap analysis
The self-assessment tool of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), adapted with the Green Climate Fund requirement for each item, the evidence of application, and wording that matches your sector. Each score rests on three sources (document, interview, evidence) and is justified in writing, with interviews at headquarters and with field teams.
Roadmap
Prioritized actions across the nine elements, with the target level set where accreditation becomes defensible, not at the top of the scale. The critical path to submission, a plan to build the track record, and an honest split between what your teams can do and what needs outside support.
Validation workshop
Results are shared ahead of time, so the workshop is used for decisions: maturity levels, priorities and named owners for each action.
Framework documents
An environmental and social policy revised from your existing one, aligned with the IFC Performance Standards and the Fund's policies on Indigenous peoples, gender and information disclosure. An institutional process document written for the people who apply it, with a dedicated section showing why the system is proportionate to your profile. In English, with French versions where useful.
What the Green Climate Fund looks at
The environmental and social requirements the Fund screens for follow the architecture of the IFC's first Performance Standard: policy, identification of risks and impacts, management programs, organizational capacity, emergency preparedness, stakeholder engagement, external communication and grievance mechanisms, ongoing reporting to affected communities, and monitoring and review.
The Fund adds two expectations that self-assessment tools do not cover: a track record showing that the system has functioned on real activities, and an accessible, legitimate institutional grievance mechanism that informs people about the Fund's own independent redress mechanism.
The revised accreditation framework adopted in 2025 reinforces the fit-for-purpose logic. The question is no longer whether your system is complete, but whether it is adequate to the risks of the activities you propose.
What we bring
Marine Gauthier was the safeguards focal point for 22 Green Climate Fund projects at UNDP, from design to reporting. She received the Secretariat's comments, integrated them and learned what its reviewers ask for, in what terms and at which point of the cycle. In the same role, she supported African development banks through Green Climate Fund accreditation of their environmental and social management systems.
We have since supported international organizations, development banks and NGOs of different sizes in building or strengthening their environmental and social management systems.
Jeffrey Saba brings the operator's view: process mapping and change management, and years of donor compliance inside an international emergency NGO, where requirements become workload for teams that are already stretched. One view gets the file through review; the other makes the system work once it is approved.
