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.

Explores how sustainability pressures are transforming the ways we all work, live, and compete. As a part of the annual study by MIT Sloan Management Review's Sustainability & Innovation project, the 2014 research focused on the critical role of sustainability collaborations that address systemic issues, and on the role of the board of directors in guiding their companies’ sustainability efforts. As a whole, the study finds progress in companies making the fundamental shift in how they organize themselves and how their boards of directors act to address the profound challenges and risks that issues of sustainability present. But it also indicates that many business leaders have some distance to go to understand that the path to sustainability success is best traveled with others.

Provides companies with practical measures on how to bring a human rights lens to their existing corporate water stewardship practices. The report is designed to be applicable to a broad range of corporate water users, and underscores the important nature of effective stakeholder engagement throughout the process.

Sets out a simple and thorough process for any company, but particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to get started with identifying its potential human rights impacts on those people directly affected by its activities, and those whose lives it touches through its relationships with suppliers or other parties. It provides tools and approaches to understand what the business already does to address these impacts, and where it can improve.

Guides companies on how they can align their strategies as well as measure and manage their contribution to the realization of the SDGs. The SDG Compass presents five steps that assist companies in maximizing their contribution to the SDGs: understanding the SDGs, defining priorities, goal setting, integrating sustainability and reporting.

To illustrate how business contributes to the implementation of the suggested priority areas, the UN Global Compact – guided by Global Compact LEAD –developed a series of “executive briefs.” This briefing series outlines the critical role business has to play in achieving global sustainability goals. The UN Global Compact especially encourages Government and UN representatives to review these briefs to learn more about the willingness of the business community to support the efforts of Governments and civil society in creating a more sustainable and equitable world.

Empowering women to participate in full and productive employment is essential to expand economic growth, promote social and sustainable development and enhance business performance. However, the positive impacts of women-focused employment practices on firms, communities and the economy are often under appreciated. Co-hosted by the UN Global Compact, the International Finance Corporation, and the International Labour Organization, this webinar presents the latest research on the business case for gender diversity in the workplace. The discussions highlight the key challenges and opportunities for advancing women’s employment and retention and present key engagement opportunities to further promote gender equality including the Women's Empowerment Principles and WINvest.

The global sanitation crisis is one of the most critical sustainable development challenges facing the world today. This discussion paper explores the business case for corporate action on sanitation and identifies several ways the private sector can make an impact.

A summary of human rights guidance materials to deepen your understanding of the first two Global Compact principles and the concepts of due diligence, sphere of influence and complicity.

Utilizes key business metrics to determine the return on investment of corporate sustainability activities. The Model & Toolkit offer companies a simple and direct approach to assess and communicate the financial impact of their sustainability strategies. Likewise, the toolkit helps investors to effectively integrate sustainability data into their existing investment processes.

One of the early questions a company must answer in meeting its corporate responsibility to respect human rights is deciding how it will organize the human rights function internally to effectively drive the process of embedding respect for human (including labor) rights. This Good Practice Note surveys a number of company experiences in organizing the human rights function internally; based on those experiences, it draws out some ‘emerging good practice guidance’ for companies, highlighting a series of questions that may help inform corporate decision-making on how best to organize the human rights function.

The right of indigenous peoples to give or withhold free, prior, and informed consent (“FPIC”) for the use of their lands, resources, traditional knowledge, or intellectual property is among the special protections for indigenous peoples. This Good Practice Note provides background on the history of FPIC, without taking a definitive viewpoint on its legal status. The Note also explores the business case for obtaining FPIC and the challenges that are likely to arise in the process; outlines current company good practices to obtain FPIC; and discusses emerging practices that not only support FPIC but also long-term benefits for affected indigenous communities.