| The UN Global Compact |
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| 2009-05-14 09:55 |
The UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. By doing so, business, as a primary agent driving globalization, can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere.
Never before have the objectives of the international community and the business world been so aligned. Common goals, such as building markets, combating corruption, safeguarding the environment and ensuring social inclusion, have resulted in unprecedented partnerships and openness among business, government, civil society, labour and the United Nations. Many businesses recognize the need to collaborate with international actors in the current global context where social, political and economic challenges (and opportunities) – whether occurring at home or in other regions – affect companies as never before.
This ever-increasing understanding is reflected in the growth of the Global Compact, which today stands as the largest corporate citizenship and sustainability initiative in the world -- with over 5100 corporate participants and stakeholders from over 130 countries.
The Global Compact is a leadership platform, endorsed by Chief Executive Officers, and offering a unique strategic platform for participants to advance their commitments to sustainability and corporate citizenship. Structured as a public-private initiative, the Global Compact is policy framework for the development, implementation, and disclosure of sustainability principles and practices and offering participants a wide spectrum of specialized workstreams, management tools and resources, and topical programs and projects -- all designed to help advance sustainable business models and markets in order to contribute to the initiative's overarching mission of helping to build a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. (See How to Participate.)
The UN Global Compact has two objectives:
Mainstream the ten principles in business activities around the world
Catalyze actions in support of broader UN goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
With these twin and complementary objectives in mind, the Global Compact has shaped an initiative that provides collaborative solutions to the most fundamental challenges facing both business and society. The Global Compact seeks to combine the best properties of the UN, such as moral authority and convening power, with the private sector’s solution-finding strengths, and the expertise and capacities of a range of key stakeholders. The initiative is global and local; private and public; voluntary yet accountable. The Global Compact’s has a unique constellation of participants and stakeholders -- bringing companies together with governments, civil society, labour, the United Nations, and other key interests.
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