About
Sustaining progress and building momentum on sustainability in the multilateral trading system.
TESS has established itself as a key convener and thought leader on trade, environment, and sustainable development in the multilateral setting. This TESS initiative seeks to contribute to mounting momentum on trade and sustainability issues within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Environment and Sustainable Development at the World Trade Organization
Despite the turbulence in international trade and the many challenges confronting the organization, the broad majority of WTO members share a conviction that environment and trade issues require sustained attention and stronger, more inclusive collective action. TESS seeks to ensure that this sentiment on the part of members moves towards concrete outcomes that address global environmental and sustainable development challenges in ways that are ambitious, effective, and just.
Since our creation in 2021, we have built and cemented our reputation as a neutral, trusted, and credible facilitator that curates timely, evidence-based information and introduces tangible ideas in multilateral discussions, including in the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE), and in the context of the member-led Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD), Dialogue on Plastic Pollution (DPP), and Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR) initiative, which we have accompanied since their launch.
Sustainable development and the need to protect and preserve the environment are firmly enshrined as a key objective of the multilateral trading system in the Preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization.
Hands-On Engagement
A specific value-added of TESS is the hands-on engagement and presence of our staff in supporting the day-to-day work of delegations in Geneva to grapple constructively with complex issues of trade and sustainability. Our reputation as a trusted convener helps forge conversations with a diversity of WTO members and link them to relevant expertise. Given the sensitivity and tensions surrounding trade diplomacy in general—and trade and sustainability specifically—this ability to gather people in off-the-record and informal settings is a core and recognized hallmark of TESS.
More generally, on the sustainability agenda at the WTO, we play a unique role in supporting regular dialogue among delegations at the technical and ambassadorial level across the membership, between policymakers, experts, and civil society, and between the trade and environment policy communities.
Integrating Developing Country Perspectives
A cross-cutting objective across all of our activities under this initiative is to support the engagement and participation of developing countries and their stakeholders in discussions on international trade and sustainability with a view to positively contributing to agenda-setting and inclusive cooperation. In so doing, we seek to integrate and amplify developing country perspectives in these discussions for cooperation agendas that enable the achievement of climate-resilient and sustainable development and just transitions.
WTO Bodies Where Trade and Environment Issues Arise
This is a time to think afresh and collaboratively about how the multilateral trading system can deliver concrete, fair, and effective progress on sustainability.
Carolyn Deere Birkbeck, Founder and Executive Director, TESS
The work of TESS is creative and substantive, demonstrating their deep understanding of the political, social, and regulatory factors at the intersection of the environmental agenda and the multilateral trading system. TESS consistently gains access to relevant actors, creates opportunities for them to meet and debate, and ensures that ideas are shaped into the goals that engage them.
H.E. Mr. José Valencia, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ecuador to the World Trade Organization and other international economic organizations in Geneva
There is no solution to the climate crisis or to loss of biodiversity without enabling action through trade policy. That action can only be collaborative between member states, civil society, and international organizations. Thank you TESS for everything that you have been doing to enable that action.
H.E. Mr. Simon Manley, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva
We’re strongest when we bring the views of all the constituencies together, especially the most vulnerable and the marginalized. TESS is about inclusion, adding value to the debates, rigorous analytical work, and a genuine desire to do good. TESS has become a critical part of our knowledge engagement ecosystem.
H.E. Mr. Matthew Wilson, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, World Trade Organization and other international organizations in Geneva
