Meaning of initiative in English

From the Cambridge English Corpus 
sustainability initiative
The university's sustainability initiatives are solely institution-specific, as it has not signed any national or international sustainability declaration.
From 
Wikipedia
technology initiative
Support is available to the knitwear and textile industries for pre-competitive collaborative research under the four main schemes covered by the research and technology initiative.
From the 
Hansard archive
unilateral initiatives
It goes without saying that unilateral initiatives that could lead to trade conflicts must be avoided.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English 
various initiatives
Thus, this article focuses on the micro-processes of interaction in the various initiatives.
From the Cambridge English Corpus