The newly-appointed head of the UN environment agency said on Tuesday he wants to change the organization to relate more to the average person and plans to further engage the private sector to achieve global environmental goals.

Erik Solheim, Norway's former environment minister, said he will take over as executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, known as UNEP, succeeding Achim Steiner, "sometime in the summer".

"To be successful in the UN, I think we also need to change our ways," Solheim said in a telephone interview. "Far too often people are speaking in very bureaucratic language and using lots of acronyms that people in the streets of Helsinki or Shanghai cannot understand and relate to."