The Global Impact

The Global Compact

The Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability movement, the Global compact is a division of the United Nations to aid in installing Corporate Social Responsibility framework for global business operations. The Global Compact corporate social responsibility model is a guide to follow and implement in business operations. In order to achieve membership and affiliation with the Global Compact the business must be developing, implementing polices and meeting the standards of Corporate Social Responsibility operations that are in accordance with the Global Compact model. Nearly 8,000 companies from 140 countries are participating in the United Nations Global Compact program. The Global Corporate Sustainability Report 2013 reveals that businesses around the world are beginning to take sustainability more seriously (Global Compact, 2013, 2) and these initiatives are aligning with global governance and a standardized internationalized institutional framework.

Ten Principles of The Global Compact

The UN Global Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption (Global Corporate Sustainability Report 2013):

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining

Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour

Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour

Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges

Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility

Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

The Global Compact Management Model

The Global Compact Management Model is a practical yet comprehensive tool to help companies evolve their sustainability efforts. It is comprised of six management steps, it guides companies of all sizes through the process of formally committing, assessing, defining, implementing, measuring and communicating a corporate sustainability strategy. (Global Compact, 2013, 5)

The concept of assessing possible risks, opportunities and impacts across the Global Compact issue areas is new ground for many companies, especially in the human rights and anti-corruption realms (Global Compact, 2013, 13)

The roadblocks they face are about taking sustainability to the next step–extending it into the supply chain, across business functions (Global Compact, 2013, 16). Firms which seek to address ethics as a product or brand issue will need to look not only at their own activities but also those of their parents and subsidiaries, and perhaps more importantly, those of firms throughout the value chain”(Crane, 2001 p. 370).

Global Corporate Sustainability Report 2013. United Nations Global Compact. New York, Published by the UN Global Compact office Contact: globalcompact@un.org September 2013

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