Resource efficiency
Disasters
Environmental governance
Harmful substances
Ecosystems management 
Global
Eastern Europe
Caucasus
Central Asia
Balkans
Mediterranean 
THINK!
TELL!
ACT!
TEACH! 
Zoï Books are produced for the United Nations, the European Union, regions, countries and a growing community of readers world-wide. We closely cooperate with GRID-Arendal in providing environmental information for decision-making.
Our digital library is available here.
Image + Click = e-book
The present report identifies and prioritises climate-related risks and opportunities for Switzerland until 2060. The Switzerland-wide synthesis, compiled by the Federal Office for the Environment, is based on inputs from the cantonal authorities and numerous experts in science and industry. Zoï contributed to the visual profile, in partiular the easily understandable iconography.
Global consumption of electrical and electronic equipment is on the rise. At the end of their life these products often are not handled according to standards and thus can become a burden to the environment. This report highlights the importance of cooperation between the United Nations entities in finding sustainable solutions to the e-waste problem.
Zoï has helped produce this executive brochure on the Peer Review Process. This Process was initiated in 2012 by the United Nation’s Environment Management Group (EMG). The Project aims to review the environmental sustainability profile and performance of UN agencies. Peer reviewing refers to one or more of the agencies reviewing the environmental performance of fellow agencies’ facilities and internal operations.
This course, aimed at government officials and practitioners dealing with mercury waste issues worldwide, offers guidance for understand better how to manage mercury wastes in an environmentally sound manner, as stipulated by the Minamata Convention and the Basel Convention. It is structured around six main modules, and will take approximately four hours to complete, not counting further reading. After completing all the units you may attempt a final quiz and obtain a certificate of completion.
The course has been developed by the International Environmental Technology Centre of UN Environment, in collaboration with Zoï.
The Global Mercury Waste Assessment describes the current mercury waste management practices in selected countries around the world. The data relating to mercury waste, such as inventories, thresholds and mercury concentrations in municipal and hazardous wastes, were limited or did not exist, and the amount of mercury in waste at the global level remains unclear. One important finding, however, is clear: the gap between the provisions of the Minamata Convention on Mercury and the current mercury waste management practices is wide.
The assessment was developed by UN Environment with support from Zoï.
| English: | ebook | |
| Arabic: | ebook | |
| Chinese: | ebook | |
| French: | ebook | |
| Russian: | ebook | |
| Spanish: | ebook |
A response by the world’s nations to the abundant evidence of the negative effects of mercury pollution on human health and the environment, the Minamata Convention on Mercury entered into force on 16 August 2017. The Convention includes provisions to control the supply, trade and use of mercury. This report provides an overview of the current state of these activities in order to assist governments and other stakeholders as the Convention moves into the implementation phase. The most important findings and observations are summarized here.
After 2 years of work, the Global High-Level Panel on Water has launched its report, concluding that the global water challenge is not only about development and human rights but it is also about peace and security. Zoï has supported the work with design, layout and cartography.
Abstract:
The Atlas of Risks and Cooperation published by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation provides a concise and visual overview of problems and solutions linked to water and security. Zoï has developed a conceptual model for analysing water conflicts according to physical and institutional criteria. A set of beautiful regional maps illustrate the hot spots and Switzerland’s engagement around the world.
EPM is a Swiss consortium specializing in the use of Earth observation for mining. The brochure outlines the products and services.
The Global Programme of Climate Change and Environment of the Swiss Agency for Developmet and Cooperation SDC has published their Strategic Framework 2017-2020; Zoï has done the design and layout of the document, including creative infographics about how things are connected.
Zoï has supported the OSCE-led assessment under the Environment and Security (ENVSEC) initiative.The goal is to identify and explain how climate change may exacerbate threats to security, and to propose effective measures in response for Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus.
Full reports by region:
Central Asia
Eastern Europe
South Caucasus
Regional summaries:
Central Asia
Eastern Europe
South Caucasus
This nexus brief sheds light on the complex interaction between climate change and health outcomes, discusses policy responses in a context of development, and identifies the environmental determinants that mediate climate impacts on human health.
The Swiss NGO DRR Platform is a network of Swiss NGO’s working on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA). Developed by several organizations including Zoï, this e-learning course collects experience-based learning and training material from various years and events. The e-course is available online for free as a self-study tool for practitioners.
Course modules (PowerPoint presentations):
An information brochure about the WOCAT (World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies) database for sustainable land management.
Zoï has also produced a short film on the subject.
This report presents the key findings of the research initiative “Drones in Humanitarian Action” (by the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) in partnership with CartONG, UAViators and Zoï Environment Network), which examines different uses of drones for humanitarian operations. The in-depth report is based on 14 case studies from 10 countries, as well as expert consultations, stakeholder meetings and a survey of humanitarian professionals in 61 countries.
Ebook: French
SDC has started a dialogue to address the linkages between climate change, environment and disaster risks on the one hand, and migration and economic development on the other. The dialogue includes thematic inputs, e-discussions and a workshop organized in Morocco in March 2016, with a particular focus on North Africa. This brief focuses on the climate change/environment and migration nexus and synthesizes the main findings from this process to date, including the relevant literature. While addressing this nexus in general, this brief has a specific focus on North Africa and explores different types of migration.
This publication, which includes Zoï graphics, is an advance executive summary of the study «Riding towards the green economy: cycling and green jobs» by the UNECE Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP). It is the first attempt to collect evidence on the number of cycling-related jobs from cities using a standardized approach in the pan- European region. We have received data and information from 37 cities or regions in 15 countries in the region.
This UNECE publication with Zoï material examines the question of air pollution, explaining how it is linked to different spheres, such as health, economy and climate change.
The brochure is intended to address the authorities, but also the public and other stakeholders, in countries that are in the process of establishing national SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) systems and/or promoting their systematic implementation. It assists countries in preparing for joining the Protocol on SEA.
This publication, for which Zoï has provided innovative maps and infographics, contains the results of nexus assessments that have been carried out within the UNECE Water Convention’s programme in the Alazani/Ganykh in the Caucasus, the Sava in South- Eastern Europe and the Syr Darya in Central Asia. The nexus assessments describe the characteristics of such resources as water, food and land, energy and ecosystem services, as well as their governance. Graphics illustrate the links identified. Climate change and socioeconomic drivers, and their effects on intersectoral dynamics, are also considered. Finally, a broad range of beneficial response actions are outlined. Such solutions to the nexus include institutions, information, instruments, infrastructure as well as international coordination and cooperation.
The quarrying of raw materials – such as limestone, shale, sand and gravel – for cement and aggregates production poses significant risks to biodiversity and ecosystems. Building Materials companies and policy makers must work together to find solutions that balance the needs of society, business and nature.
Drawing on the lessons and experience of a multi-year engagement with Holcim, a leading supplier of cement and aggregates, IUCN has developed a series of guidance documents that address the risks and opportunities for biodiversity and ecosystems from quarrying for cement and aggregates. These documents emphasise the distinct but complementary roles that governments and businesses have to play in the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
Integrated Biodiversity Management System (IBMS): pdf ebook
Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS): pdf ebook
Are you working on land use or conservation policies? Or landscape-level programmes? Perhaps you are involved in the forest, agriculture or energy sector? Are you interested in exploring the potential for restoration and carbon sequestration in your country? Maybe you have been asked to take part in an FLR assessment? Or maybe you are simply curious to learn more about what this is all about.
Zoï has helped IUCN publish a highly visual methodology handbook '"Assessing forest landscape restoration opportunities at the national level". The goal is producing support for restoration and coming to a common vision of how degraded and deforested landscapes can be transformed into healthy and productive systems.
pdf French pdf Portuguese pdf Spanish
ebook French ebook Portuguese ebook Spanish
Maps, graphics, comics: Zoï has compiled a portfolio of maps and infographics produced for the SDC water programme during 2014.
This publication aims at improving public awareness of mercury environment and health risks, catalysing remedial actions and promoting responsible approaches to waste and chemicals management.
Today, environmental crimes amount to more than $100 billion a year. Those high-profit, low-risk crimes are destroying ecosystems, dramatically impacting on climate change and devastating local economies. Nevertheless, they are extremely hard to fight as they are constantly hidden within legal Environmental crimes are not soft crimes. They often occur in countries with a high rate of corruption involving violence and impacting directly on the poorest population. Environmental crimes take full advantage of the financial opacity (tax havens, e.g.) and the weakness of the worldwide transportation system trade, take advantage of tax havens and are mostly controlled by huge criminal organizations such as mafias or illegitimate firms. This brochure provides an overview of the situation, identifies some of the most important points and suggests ways to fight against this global threat.
Even though Zoï has existed in a different body since middle 1990s or early 2000s, depending on how one counts, formally we came to our Swiss being in 2009. Yet four years is a long time for a start-up: many die before, others finally take a deep breath and start to reflect upon what they really are.
Just as they did with our previous body – GRID-Arendal in Norway – people may see us differently, depending on what they are ready to see. Some believe that Zoï is a cool (not always cheap) design studio, while others see us as artists, scientists, travel agents, fixers and handymen. We are also donors, propagandists, agitators and missionaries. But one thing is certain: without inventing, writing, illustrating and printing what we see as attractive and creative zoïbooks, we can not exist.
One other certain thing is that it is in the countries, cities and mountains, deserts and rivers that we find ideas and audiences for these books. It is there we hope to help build a different world and future by bringing to people what we know and believe in, and by carrying back from them to international Geneva the true meaning and inspiration for us to continue and grow.
This report is the most comprehensive assessment of global Mercury emissions and speaks directly to governments involved in the development of the global treaty on mercury. It presents updates from the UNEP Global Mercury Assessment 2013 in short and punchy facts and figures backed by compelling graphics, that provide governments and civil society with the rationale and the imperative to act on this notorious pollutant.
Otto Simonett, Viktor Novikov, and Zurab Jincharadze from Zoinet provided useful comments and produced most of the maps included in this book analysing the development of Eurasian cities - "part of
the world’s largest experiment in urban development".
This third, revised edition of Vital Ozone Graphics sheds a light onto the decisions taken by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol to accelerate the phase out of HCFCs and the implications this has on the use of replacement chemicals. It focuses on the links to climate both physically up in the air and on the institutional ground of international treaty negotiations and discusses the remaining challenges posed by the large amounts of banks of ozone depleting substances still present in equipment in use and stocked away, only safe for the atmosphere once entirely destroyed. The third edition is lauched for the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol.It updates the previous edition with data and information available up to 2011.
The objectives of the toolkit are to help the parties to mining activities express their interests and concerns in a constructive way and to identify areas of mutual benefit. The idea is to contribute to the prevention or resolution of conflicts and ultimately to the economic and social development of a region in an environmentally responsible manner.
Although this toolkit is based on experiences in Central Asia and makes extensive use of findings from case studies in the region, we consider it globally applicable, within the limitations naturally given by the fact that each case is unique.
The United Nations Environment Programme 2011–2013 strategy focuses on six thematic priorities – climate change; resource efficiency; disasters and conflicts; environmental governance; harmful substances and hazardous waste; and ecosystem management. As part of its effort to come to terms with these priorities, UNEP engaged Zoï to create thematic maps for use as objective tools for priority setting in the European region.
This flyer provides a quick picture of the report prepared by the UN Environment Management Group (EMG) on UN System contribution to the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity which was submitted to the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
This report is the product of inter-agency consultations aimed at ensuring greater environmental and social sustainability in the United Nations’ work. The report notes that while many individual United Nations entities have adopted assessment policies and practices, the United Nations System acting together can do even more, including by developing a common sustainability framework and relevant indicators. The initiative looks to build on the internationally agreed sustainability norms and principles of the last 30 years by adapting the best practices of environmental and social assessment procedures and management systems to United Nations System activities.
Zoï cares about the environment although, strictly speaking, no one needs to protect the environment, which could do quite well without us. Zoï cares about people, but for whatever reason our work is called environmental protection not people protection. This is Zoï’s work: to identify the threats, reveal and explain the relationships and communicate what we learn. The more we understand the connections between people and the environment, the more we come to know that our work is protecting both.
From generation to disposal, waste is a by-product of societal dynamics, and all too often absent from our consideration. Vital Waste Graphics 3 seeks to put waste in context by looking at some of the forces driving global trends, examining various concerns and the strategies developed to address them and considering the difficulties encountered in implementing these strategies.
The fundamental objective of the GEO Cities project is to promote a better understanding of the interaction between urban development and the environment, providing the region’s local governments, scientists, policy-makers and the public with reliable and up-to-date information to help them improve urban environmental planning and management. The GEO Cities assessments provide information on the
In September 2009 the United Nations Environment Management Group agreed to establish an Issue Management Group on Green Economy. This group was tasked to prepare a report to assess how the United Nations system could coherently support countries in transitioning to a green economy. The report is expected to facilitate a common understanding of the green economy approach and the measures required for the transition. The report is also envisioned to contribute to the preparatory process for the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD or Rio+20) where “the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication” is one of the two themes; the other is “the institutional framework for sustainable development”.
More than two billion people depend on the world’s arid and semi-arid lands. Preventing land degradation and supporting sustainable development in drylands has major implications for food security, climate change and human settlement. This report, issued at the beginning of the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, sets out a shared strategy by UN agencies to rise to the challenge of addressing the special needs of these vital zones. This report illustrates the many ways in which the UN system is identifying opportunities to mainstream the drylands agenda into the policy-making process.
In support of the 2011 Ministerial Conference, the European Environment Agency, supported by UNECE, has prepared a Europe's environment — An Assessment of Assessments (EE-AoA). This assessment of assessments focuses on the two themes of the Astana conference: water and related ecosystems, and green economy. What progress is being made? Is the right information available to be able to tell? Are the correct approaches to assess what is known being used to support the policy process? Given the volume of environmental reports, indicators and data available a huge amount seems to be known about these issues. But is all this informing the policy process effectively, and is the best being done with the resources available for assessment? The aim of this AoA is to investigate these issues by assessing the assessments: cataloguing what exists, reviewing what is in them and analysing how they are put together. The overall objective is to improve the way in which the state of Europe's environment is kept under on-going review.
This book is intended as a basic information kit that tells "the story" of desertification, land degradation and drought at the global scale, together with a comprehensive set of graphics. The book indicates trends as they have taken place over the last decades, combining and connecting issues, and present priorities. It also provides information on the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and how it works to forge a global partnership to reverse and prevent desertification/land degradation and to mitigate the effects of drought in affected areas in order to support poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.
A solid appreciation of commercial mercury trade is a vital foundation upon which governments can build effective strategies and promote specific measures to address national and global mercury challenges.
Design, maps, graphics and layout by Zoï Environment Network.
Poster presented at the "International Conference on mercury as a global polluant", July 2001.
The loss of land, freshwater and marine biodiversity is part of a wider wave of environmental change driven by ever expanding human activities, touching on virtually every component of our biosphere and the global climate system. This report by the Environment Management Group presents why biodiversity matters to sectors, and how the different policy sectors can help maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Europe contributes to global environmental pressures and accelerating feedbacks through its dependence on fossil fuels, mining products and other imports. Conversely, changes elsewhere increasingly affect Europe. This assessment of global megatrends focuses on the impact of global pressures on Europe. A global-to-European perspective is relevant for European environmental policy making because Europe’s environmental challenges and management options are being reshaped by global drivers such as demographics, technologies, trade patterns and consumption.
Zoï has provided the Russian translation of the report for the European Environment Agency.
This guide shows how various levels of society can work towards climate neutrality. Written and reviewed by experts from many disciplines and various countries, the book is aimed at individuals, small and large businesses, NGOs, international organizations, cities and countries.
A Resource Kit for journalists, which provides the essential visuals, facts, links and contacts to develop ozone story ideas. This publication is intended to serve as an interesting reference for those who wish to learn more about the Montreal Protocol and ozone layer depletion.
This publication integrates two streams: the arguments of leading researchers for a more fundamental response to the multiple threats to our single planetary environment with the artistic vision of a world in which everything has been redistributed to achieve radical equity. Both argue for a new way of managing the earth and its resources - a way that provides for everyone’s basic needs. The alternative? Science, they say, offers the probable answer: a return to the dark ages.
This publication presents the substance of the Climate Change 2007 Synthesis Report of the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in simplified language and structure.
This publication of the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC) aims to present a basis for action within South Eastern Europe and within the Tisza River Basin towards the development of corporate practice, regulatory frameworks, governance guidelines and/or financial and insurance markets suitable for the support of a modern mining industry.
This impact-of-information paper is our early collective attempt to reflect on the meaning of our professional life. What are we working for really – apart for money and fame? Do trees feel the difference? The content for reflection was mostly drawn from our daily work, the paper was also inspired by such widely differing subjects as the visionary Tatlin tower that was never built in Moscow, research on how art relates to propaganda, and evidence of how propaganda is key to business and political success.
