The ILO Helpdesk is a service from the International Labour Organization that provides a one-stop-shop to help company managers and workers understand the application of international labour standards.

  2022 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Children’s Rights and Business Principles developed jointly by UNICEF, UN Global Compact and Save the Children in consultation with children, businesses, investors, governments, civil society, trade unions, national human rights institutions and United Nations entities. The joint Brief “Charting the Course: Embedding children’s rights in responsible business conduct” summarizes the findings of a more detailed forthcoming report by the three organizations and aims to chart the course for the coming years. Impact at scale is yet to be achieved to put child rights at the heart of corporate sustainability, the time has come to raise the bar towards making business fit for children.

Guides companies around the world to better understand and address human rights impacts in their operations and supply chains. Users can access in-depth analysis of key human rights issues, due diligence recommendations, as well as case studies illustrating how other businesses have responsibly addressed human rights impacts.

Developed by the United Nations Global Compact, UNICEF and Save the Children – the Children’s Rights and Business Principles are the first comprehensive set of principles to guide companies on the full range of actions they can take in the workplace, marketplace and community to respect and support children’s rights. While the business and human rights agenda has evolved significantly in recent years, a child rights perspective has not yet been explicitly addressed. (https://childrenandbusiness.org/)

Identifies practices that businesses can implement to advance decent work and improve occupational safety and health (OSH) globally. Co-developed by the United Nations Global Compact and the International Labour Organization, the brief focuses on the role that businesses can play in ensuring safe and healthy workplaces, especially when operating in countries with deficient national safety and health and employment injury protection schemes. It further recognizes the important link between sound OSH practices and effective employment injury insurance schemes: the most desirable mechanisms to protect the incomes of workers who suffer work-related injuries and cover their medical costs.

To help SMEs gear up for their exciting journeys in sustainability, Global Compact Network Singapore is pleased to launch its inaugural SME Guide to Corporate Sustainability. The SME Guide shines a spotlight on latest sustainability trends and offers insights on how to adapt. It comes with a 6-step process to get started and useful tools and resources to support business transformation.

Description: Part of the UN Global Compact SDG Ambition Accelerator Initiative, the Living Wage Ambition is one of ten SDG Ambition Benchmarks aiming at challenging organizations to set more ambitious targets and accelerating integration of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into core business management. This ambition is encouraging companies to provide and promote a living wage as an essential aspect of decent work to ensure all workers, families and communities can live in dignity. The guide “Achieving the Living Wage Ambition: Reference Sheet and Implementation Guidance” provides illustrative details regarding the steps to take to successfully implement a living wage programme in a company’s business system which will lead to all employees being provided with wages and benefits that are sufficient to cover at least their basic needs. For more information on the SDG Ambition Accelerator Initiative please visit here.

The Human Rights Due Diligence Tool provides guidance and a checklist for cargo owners, charterers and logistics providers to conduct human rights due diligence across their supply chains to identify, prevent, mitigate and address adverse human rights impacts for seafarers impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

Highlights the central role businesses play in determining whether or not global temperature increases can be limited to 1.5°C by 2050, and identifies key issues that businesses should consider when assessing climate change and human rights - such as climate refugees, human trafficking, litigation hotspots, investor demands, and cost of inaction. 

  Guides employers in implementing family-friendly policies that support parents and caregivers in their own operations and using their influence and leverage to promote such policies among business partners and within their supply chains.  Conditions of employment not only have a significant impact on the well-being of workers but also their children and families. Yet, for the hundreds of millions of workers in global supply chains, basic entitlements that provide them with the time, services and resources to support their families are widely absent. The large-scale business disruptions and the socioeconomic crisis resulting from COVID-19 have exacerbated the situation. Now, more than ever, family-friendly policies and practices are needed to support workers and their families during the crisis and beyond.

Examines how companies can navigate complex multi-tiered supply chains and their associated challenges as part of their efforts to advance decent work in their global supply chains. While multi-tier supply chains have the advantage of driving efficiency, reducing planning cycle lead times and reducing possible business disruptions, they also increase the risk of causing or contributing to human rights impacts and decent work deficits, particularly in the lower tiers of the chain. This is exacerbated in a crisis situation such as a pandemic, where workers’ rights and conditions may be compromised and income threatened as a result of order cancellations, factory shut-downs, or layoffs. This report seeks to guide multinational enterprises in reducing global supply chain vulnerabilities and provides proactive measures companies can take and best practice examples to draw inspiration from.

Provides guidance on the evolving business and human rights legal landscape and the consequent legal considerations that apply to multinational companies. Today, multinational companies must navigate increasingly complex human rights obligations, identify human rights risk in supply chains through due diligence, and take steps to mitigate such risks or make public disclosures. This topic is relevant to professionals tasked with embedding sustainability and human rights considerations in their business strategy. This report was developed by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP with input from the participants of the UN Global Compact Decent Work in Global Supply Chains Action Platform.