NATO STO

NATO has been addressing environmental challenges for over half a century. In March 2021, NATO Foreign Ministers endorsed NATO’s Climate Change and Security Agenda. It provides a 360-degree approach and includes measures to increase both NATO’s and Allies’ awareness of the impact of climate change on security, along with developing clear adaptation and mitigation measures, while ensuring the safety of military personnel and operational and cost effectiveness. The recently released ‘NATO Greenhouse Gases Emission Mapping and Analytical Methodology’ provides further guidelines on estimating the greenhouse gas emissions from the various civilian and military structures in the NATO Enterprise. In response to these challenges, NATO AVT established an exploratory team ‘Climate Change: Mitigation and Impact on NATO Platforms’ in Fall 2023 to assess climate change impacts on military platforms along with technologies for GHG emissions reduction and energy efficiency improvement within member nations. AVT-ET-227 conducted an on-line survey to solicit feedback from the greater NATO community on climate change impact and gauge interest in further activities under AVT. One result of the survey was strong interest in developing better understanding of life cycle assessment of sustainable technologies to aid in climate mitigation activities. To set priorities for decarbonization, defense forces can benefit from categorizing their emissions as those for which they are directly responsible (categorized as Scopes 1 and 2) and those resulting from the full supply chain, including suppliers (Scope 3). Defense departments will encounter challenges when attempting to reduce the emissions for which they are directly responsible because of the importance of having mission-critical capability and long equipment life cycles. For example, fossil-fuel-powered equipment in use now, or coming into service shortly, will still be fielded in 2050. For defense supply chains, the complexity of the full supplier landscape presents a challenge to quantifying and directly managing emissions. Defense forces have unique suppliers and unique products. This prevents the creation of an ecosystem to generate mutual benefits between defense forces and their suppliers, akin to the ones developing in the automotive sector that could help electric vehicles (EVs) displace vehicles with internal combustion engines. It may therefore be most effective to address supply-chain emissions by setting decarbonization requirements aligned to national targets for all suppliers, as opposed to quantifying emissions directly and actively trying to reduce them. Compared with most other sectors, the global defense industry remains at an early stage of its journey to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Safety, reliability, and performance have been and will continue to be the main requirements of customers in the armed forces. Environmental sustainability has been a lower priority for most defense companies. However, the defense industry is facing higher pressure to decarbonize. Most leading defense companies have begun efforts to cut Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions—those related to their operations and energy usage, respectively. However, these emissions currently account for only a small fraction of defense contractors’ total emissions. Contractors have barely begun to limit the greater than 90% of emissions that occur outside their direct control: those from the parts and materials they procure, which are referred to as Scope 3 upstream emissions, and from the usage of the products they sell, which are called Scope 3 downstream emissions. Contractors must therefore work with their suppliers, customers, and partners if they want to reach net zero.