20(a) Provide the name and full description of the community that the applicant is committing to serve

Prototypical answer:

gTLDFull Legal NameE-mail suffixDetail
.ECOBig Room Inc.doteco.orgView

The Global Environmental Community (the Community) – which the applicant Big Room Inc. commits to serve as the .ECO registry operator – is multi-stakeholder in nature, comprising individuals and entities (not-for-profit, business and government) that have come together for over 60 years through a variety of international alliances dedicated to the respectful, responsible and sustainable use of the environment.

In keeping with this tradition and in response to ICANN’s new gTLD program, the Community has established an alliance with the goal of creating and operating .ECO in the public interest and in keeping with the Community’s values.

The alliance formed in March 2009 by establishing a terms of reference for the .ECO Community Council. In September 2010 the stakeholders unanimously adopted a policy consensus for .ECO, including the purpose, principles and policies. In April 2012, council members formed the Dot ECO Global Community Organization (the Organization) to formally represent the Community in relation to .ECO. The Organization has signed an agreement with Big Room to apply to act as the registry operator of the .ECO Community TLD. The agreement was the result of 3 years of independently mediated discussion amongst the international council of Community members.

The Organization represents the majority of the Community including over 50 leading environmental groups from around the globe.

HOW THE COMMUNITY IS DELINEATED

Members of the Community are delineated from Internet users generally by community-recognized memberships, accreditations, registrations, and certifications that demonstrate active commitment, practice and reporting.

Community members include:

Relevant not-for-profit environmental organizations (ie, accredited by relevant United Nations (UN) bodies; International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) member; proof of not-for-profit legal entity status with documented environmental mission).

Businesses (ie, members of environmental organizations; UN Global Compact participants; hold internationally-recognized environmental certifications; report to a global sustainability standard).

Government agencies with environmental missions (ie, UN bodies, national⁄sub-national government agencies with environmental responsibilities).

Individuals (ie, members of environmental organizations; academics; certified environmental professionals).

HOW THE COMMUNITY IS STRUCTURED AND ORGANIZED

The Community has historically structured and organized itself and its work through an international network of organizations, including millions of individual members with strongly aligned goals, values and interests. As well as collaborating via long-standing international multi-stakeholder fora and membership organizations, members traditionally organize through multi-organization alliances around specific events, geographies, and issues. The approach of forming alliances parallels the Internet community’s method of designing solutions for issues of interest, most notably the Internet Governance Forum Dynamic Coalitions and Internet Engineering Task Force Birds-Of-a-Feather sessions. The alliance supporting this application embodies this organizing tradition.

Examples include:

International multi-stakeholder fora, eg, UN Environment Programme

Membership organizations, eg, WWF,Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE), the largest environmental membership organizations in the world, collectively representing 10 million individual members

Event-focused alliances, eg, TckTckTck, an alliance of 300 organizations formed to work for a fair, binding treaty at the 2010 Copenhagen climate summit

Geography-specific groups, eg, The Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED), brings together not-for-profit organizations from the Northern hemisphere to create and protect sustainable communities

Issue-specific alliances, eg, 350.org, a grassroots organization working in over 188 countries to solve the climate crisis

WHEN THE COMMUNITY WAS ESTABLISHED

1948: First formal Community institution, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was established. Not-for-profit organizations, businesses and governments came together to address pressing environmental challenges.

1972: Global Environmental Community recognized by the world’s governments on creation of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN’s designated authority for addressing environmental issues at the global and regional level.

COMMUNITY ACTIVITES TO DATE

Some key global historical events:

International Organizations Established – IUCN (1948); World Wildlife Fund International (WWF) (1961); Friends of the Earth International (FOE), Greenpeace International (Greenpeace) (1971); UNEP (1972)

UN Global Summits – organizations, businesses and governments participate in global environmental events: UN Conference on the Human Environment (1972); Rio UN Conference on Environment and Development (“Earth Summit”) (1992); Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002); Rio + 20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (2012)

Organizations⁄UN collaborate on Global Conservation – “The World Conservation Strategy” by IUCN, UNEP, and WWF (1980); “World Charter for Nature” by IUCN adopted by UN (1982); “Caring for the Earth” by IUCN, UNEP, and WWF (1991)

Binding International Legal Conventions – Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar) (1971); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1973); Convention on Biological Diversity (1992); UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1994); Kyoto Protocol (1997)

Integration of Environmental, Economic & Social Issues – Concept of Sustainable Development is established in “Our Common Future” (1987); World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) (1995); Millennium Development Goals (2000); UN Global Compact (2004)

Consumer Protection – 1st ecolabel, The Blue Angel, created by the German government (1978); UN amends “UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection” to include environmental issues (1999); US Federal Trade Commission issues “Green Guides” to prevent false environmental claims (1992, 1996, 1998, 2010 review)

ESTIMATED SIZE OF THE COMMUNITY

The Community’s considerable size, longevity and enduring importance are evidenced by the nature and global range of its alliances of millions of individuals and entities, the variety of multi-stakeholder processes, the number of green businesses, and continuous global intergovernmental engagement.

Estimated Membership

40,000+ Not-for-Profit Organizations, eg, 34,376 US environmental organizations (2011 Internal Revenue Service Exempt Organizations Business Master File, National Center for Charitable Statistics); 6,157 in the UK (March 2012, 1⁄3 of 18,470 Environment ⁄ Conservation ⁄ Heritage registered charities, Charity Commission);

148,000+ Businesses, eg, 68,200 US businesses committed to environmental sustainability (Pew Charitable Trust, “The Clean Energy Economy”, 2009); 80,000 small and medium enterprises in the EU use certified environmental management systems (Danish Technological Institute, “SMEs and the Environment in the European Union”, 2010);

193+ Environment-focused Governmental Bodies – eg, 193 member states (UN website, March 2012);

18 million+ Individuals, eg, International: WWF, 5M; Greenpeace, 2.8M; FOE, 2M; Ocean Conservancy, 0.5M. National: National Wildlife Federation, 4M; Sierra Club, 1.4M; National Resources Defense Council, 1.2M; The Nature Conservancy, 1M (Members, 2010).

Estimated Geographic Extent

Membership Organization Offices: WWF (62 countries & presence in 100); Greenpeace (28 countries & presence in 40); FOE (77 national groups, 13 affiliates); IUCN Membership (101 international, 875 national organizations; 89 states; 124 government agencies);

UNEP Governing Council: 58 elected UN member seats; UNEP accredited organizations from 75 countries.

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