Green Cross International

Green Cross International (GCI) is a global independent non-profit and non-governmental environmental organisation (NGO) working to address the inter-connected global challenges of security, poverty eradication and environmental degradation through a combination of advocacy and local projects. .

It was founded by former Soviet Union President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993, building upon the work started by the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Green Cross International has been an active player in the Rio+20 conferences.

GCI is headquartered in Geneva and has a growing network of national organizations in various countries.

In January 1990 during an address to the Global Forum on Environment and Development for Survival, President Mikhail Gorbachev (the former President of the USSR) brought up the idea for an organisation that would apply the medical emergency response model of the International Committee of the Red Cross to ecological issues and expedite solutions to environmental problems that transcend national boundaries.

Developing this idea, delegates at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (June 1992), approached Mikhail Gorbachev urging him to create and launch such an organisation. Meanwhile, the Swiss Parliamentarian Roland Wiederkehr founded the 'World Green Cross' with the same objective. The two organisations merged in 1993 to form Green Cross International (GCI).

GCI was then formally launched in Kyoto on 18 April 1993. Upon the invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev, many renowned figures joined its Board of Directors and its Honorary Board.

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