FOUNDATION FOR THE GLOBAL COMPACT

Results: The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability movement with 8,000 corporate signatories and 4,000 other stakeholder from 145 countries – representing nearly every industry sector and size, and hailing equally from developed and developing countries. A number of issue platforms, sets of principles and global working groups have been developed to spur action by companies and lead the way to new solutions and actions; such as, Caring for Climate, CEO Water Mandate, Women’s Empowerment Principles, Children’s Rights and Business Principles. New platforms include Business for Peace, Business and Education, and Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. Deeply connected to the initiative are the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) – with over 1,200 investors managing assets over US$ 34 trillion – and the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) – with over 500 academic institutions from nearly 80 countries. These sister initiatives are bringing mainstream investors and business. Companies based in 101 nations have convened to establish self-actualizing Global Compact Local Networks. Local Networks serve an essential role in rooting the UN Global Compact within different national contexts– and their distinct economic, cultural and linguistic needs. Every three years, the UN Global Compact hosts a Leaders Summit to bring together chief executives with leaders from civil society, Government and the United Nations. At the Summit, CEOs renew their commitment to responsible business practices and set the direction for future priorities and actions. Chaired by the UN Secretary-General, the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit is the premier UN-business event.

Geographic areas served: International

Programs: In 2014, the foundation and the global compact hosted over fifty events, over thirty webinars, and launched over twenty new resources to help companies in their sustainability journey. Our biggest programs, the united nations private sector forum, the womens empowerment principles and global compact lead, were major contributors to our overall success last year. In 2014 the united nations private sector forum, our annual flagship event, was a historic gathering of heads of state and government with chief executives from the business community on the issue of climate change, with over one hundred heads of state and over three hundred and fifty companies participating. The forum played a key part in the un secretary-generals climate summit and served as a platform to build momentum around climate action for both the government and private sector before the 2015 cop21 negotiations. The event focused primarily on the imperative of putting a price on carbon, with over thirty companies committed to implement carbon pricing policies during the event. In addition, the womens empowerment principles (weps), the compacts largest issue initiative, gained momentum in 2014. The weps saw a twenty percent increase in signatories last year, bringing the total number of signatories to the principles to 846. The initiatives annual event hosted over 250 participants and served as a platform to share best practices for advancing womens status in the workplace and their communities worldwide. In addition to their annual event, weps also hosted an official side event on the global job crisis in connection with the annual un commission on the status of women that again stressed the role the private sector must play in promoting gender equality. Both weps events provided a unique platform for collaboration between government, civil society, un and private sector leaders on gender equality. The global compact lead program, which recognizes corporations on the cutting edge of sustainable business, also grew in 2014 to include sixty companies. Lead launched the global compact board program in 2014 which aims to empower the highest level of corporate leadership to push sustainability forward. Lead also launched coping, shifting, changing: strategies for managing the impacts of investor short-termism on corporate sustainability in collaboration with the principles for responsible investment. This new resource aims to strengthen companies capacity to communicate the monetary value of sustainability to investors. In addition to these new tools, lead companies engaged with government, civil society and un leaders to offer a business perspective during the creation of the sustainable development goals (sdgs).