The first governmental agency to deal exclusively with environmental issues in Argentina was the Secretariat of Natural Resources and Human Environment (Secretaría de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente Humano), created in 1991 during the presidency of Fernando de la Rúa, which answered to the Office of the Chief of Cabinet.

In 2015, President Mauricio Macri elevated the secretariat to ministerial level in his first cabinet, appointing Sergio Bergman as minister.

[4][5] From 2019-2023, under former President Alberto Fernández, the Ministry has regained its status in the cabinet, this time with Juan Cabandié as minister responsible.

The centralized dependencies, as in other government ministers, are known as secretariats (secretarías) and undersecretariats (subsecretarías), as well as a number of other centralized agencies:[7][8] The Administración de Parques Nacionales ("National Parks Administration", APN) also reports to the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development as a decentralized agency.

[9] The Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development is headquartered at San Martín 451, located in the barrio of Monserrat, in Buenos Aires.