Contains implementation guidance to help companies report on their human rights performance in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights.

Lays out five defining features of corporate sustainability, which the Global Compact asks businesses to strive towards – looking at why each element is essential, how business can move forward and what the Global Compact is doing to help.

With the development of the Post-2015 agenda and discussion of the scope of potential sustainable development goals, the United Nations Global Compact has been asked to bring private sector perspectives and action to the global development agenda. As one of the priority areas designated by the UN Global Compact’s LEAD companies, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality aims ensure that all sustainable development goals be inclusive and gender-sensitive to facilitate maximum impact and avoid increasing inequalities. This issue paper explores the responsible business community’s willingness to contribute to the creation of women’s empowerment goals as well as to inform government and policy makers in future implementation of efforts involving the private sector. In addition, gender is incorporated into all ten (10) Issue Briefs exploring a different priority issue area as identified through extensive consultations with LEAD companies and other stakeholders.

Provides instruction on how businesses can develop and implement a human rights policy within their companies. The second edition of How to Develop a Human Rights Policy was designed by Human Rights and Labour Working Group member Ernst & Young - Japan.

Integrating human rights considerations into corporate crisis management is one way that companies can seek to identify, prevent and address adverse impacts. Some companies are broadening their crisis management policies and procedures to explicitly address adverse human rights impacts, consistent with the UN Global Compact Principles and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This Good Practice Note identifies five good practices for integrating human rights considerations into crisis planning, the first phase of effective crisis management. Note: Human rights considerations during the subsequent phases of crisis response and recovery are beyond the scope of this note.

Provides a collection of case studies from participants of the Global Compact Cities Programme.

Various stakeholder groups are mounting calls for Boards of Directors to take sustainability into account while adhering to their legal duties to shareholders. This puts questions about fiduciary duty front and center. Careful legal analyses of such questions have been prepared over the past year by law firms all over the world. The collection of memoranda below will inform and enrich discussion among Board directors, and the lawyers who counsel them, about how changing circumstances near and far are affecting their ability to meet fiduciary duty requirements. 

 Prof. Robert G. Eccles and Tim Youmans of Harvard Business School have led this collaboration which included the UN Global Compact, the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Sustainable Development and PRI, Their aim was to gather legal perspectives from law firms in a wide range of countries. Each participating law firm used a standard research template developed by Linklaters in the UK to structure their respective legal memo. The legal memos are posted below with the permission of the participating firms. To further grow the research, enquiries from law firms in countries that do not already have a legal memo are welcome. If you do not see your country listed and want to know if one is being prepared, please contact Ingvild Soerensen (soerensen@unglobalcompact.org).

Marking the UN Global Compact’s 15th anniversary, Global Compact +15 brought business and civil society to the United Nations to show how the private sector is taking action and partnering to advance societal priorities, with an emphasis on the United Nations global agenda for sustainable development (i.e. the Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs). The General Assembly Session was a unique gathering of all participants and special guests in the UN General Assembly Hall. Together participants aimed to demonstrate to Governments the private sector’s critical role in solving our world’s greatest challenges and show how the Global Compact’s work is at the heart of the United Nations agenda.

Provides guidance on how businesses and business schools can collaborate to co-create solutions for sustainability challenges. The toolkit and brochure feature inspiring examples of partnerships, categorized under five themes: influencing, training, collaborating, researching and consulting.

Chief Executives of Caring for Climate and UNEP-FI signatories engaged in a high-level meeting together with Government representatives, including representatives of relevant bodies established under the UNFCCC. The high-level meeting put forward an overview of all commitments and contributions by business and investors towards COP21. Following welcoming remarks, participants engaged in discussions focused on pricing the cost of carbon emissions. The event concluded with a report-back segment and key recommendations for Government actions that would help bring greater scale and quality to corporate climate leadership globally. The high-level meeting was the focus area business event under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda.

Explains how the UN Global Compact calls on businesses to take action, and its place in the history of the modern corporate sustainability movement. The report then explores the role of the Global Compact in driving change by setting out 16 findings across three areas: 1.corporate practices; 2. the corporate operating environment; and 3. dominant worldviews. It concludes by setting out three pathways for the future – recommendations for how we can work together to achieve the vision of a sustainable and inclusive global economy, and what the Global Compact can do to scale its impact.

An assessment tool that enables companies and civil society partners to understand corporate impacts on multi-dimensional poverty. As a tool to help implement the SDGs, the Poverty Footprint provides a comprehensive overview of factors that influence poverty, and it emphasizes stakeholder engagement and partnership between companies and civil society as a means for establishing pro-poor business strategies.