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Module Following the establishment of the GEO process and production of the first GEO report, UNEP’s
1 Governing Council renewed the mandate for GEO in 1997, 1999, 2002,2005, 2007 and 2012 . The
5
latest of these Governing Council decisions extended the interval between the GEO reports to five
years, and added an “annual GEO statement.”

In addition to producing a five-year GEO report, UNEP also has a mandate for capacity building, which
9-12 December, 2013 At the level of global GEO reports, Collaborating Centres and other contributors advance their
is an integral part of the GEO process and works at different levels, using a range of mechanisms.

IEA skills through a learning-by-doing approach, working with leading international experts and
producing assessment content for the main report. At the regional, national and sub-national level
the target group includes practitioners and managers in charge of relevant assessment and reporting
processes. These sub-global IEAs, often mandated and led by governments adopt elements of the
GEO approach, building consistency and strengthening the global process.

Each GEO assessment is multi-dimensional in scope, incorporating environmental, policy, geographic
and temporal perspectives. Environmental dimensions include:

? Thematic (related to the state and trends of land, atmosphere, water and biodiversity);

? Functional (related to the provision of environmental goods and services);

? Sectoral (the relationships between the environment and activity areas such as energy use, industry,
tourism, agriculture and trade);

? Cross-cutting (relating to issues such as production, consumption, gender, poverty, human security
and vulnerability); and

? Interlinkages within and among all of the above.

Geographically, we can distinguish between the global GEO assessment and sub-global (regional,
national and sub-national) assessments. While GEO-1, GEO-2, GEO-3, GEO-4 and GEO-5 are global
in scope, they are differentiated at regional and sub-regional levels to highlight important spatial
variations and the environmental priorities warranting policy attention in different parts of the
world.

Each GEO assessment covers a specific time period decided by, or relevant to, the policy makers to
whom it is targeted. GEO-3, for example, was requested by the UNEP Governing Council to be a
“30-year after Stockholm” (1972–2002) report. The outlook is an important part of the time scale.

5. GC19/3; GC20/1; GC22/1/IB

18 The GEO Approach to Integrated Environmental Assessment