Designed to help you find the resources you need to take the next step on your sustainability journey.
Examines the aggregate results of companies using the Women's Empowerment Principles Gender Gap Analysis Tool with an aim to provide insights on global corporate performance on gender equality and and showcase the efforts of partners and other stakeholders to drive women's empowerment around the world. The report concludes that while corporate support for gender equality is strong, businesses have yet to introduce measurable targets and robust accountability mechanisms to ensure progress.
Businesses are facing increasing demands from their stakeholders to be more transparent about their practices and exposure to risks related to their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Pushing against the trend for more transparency are the costs of data collection, requirements for assurance, exposure to legal jeopardy, and legitimate perceptions of reputational risk. This report navigates this ‘transparency dilemma’, to build a better understanding of the risk/return profile of transparency and thereby help companies to balance competing interests.
The Decent Work Toolkit for Sustainable Procurement will enable companies, procurement professionals and suppliers to develop a common understanding on how to advance decent work through purchasing decisions and scaling up efforts to improve lives around the globe. With a focus on trust and transparency, the Decent Work Toolkit for Sustainable Procurement is publicly available to all and contains real-life examples of buyers and suppliers jointly addressing decent work concerns in global supply chains.
Outlines the opportunities for the ESG bond market to secure capital for ocean-related projects and companies that have made, or are planning to make, a significant contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Ocean Principles of the UN Global Compact serve as a baseline for issuers to ensure they meet the minimum expectations of a holistic approach to sustainability aligned with the SDGs.
Offers a roadmap for how ocean-related industries and policymakers can jointly secure a healthy and productive ocean by 2030. The report describes five critical areas of success. For each area, the report suggests two ambitions and puts forward several recommendations addressing critical dimensions of public and private actions to accelerate ocean-related solutions.
Defines a vision for the seaweed industry: an upscaled, responsible and restorative seaweed industry, playing a globally significant role in food security, climate change mitigation, and support to the marine ecosystem, as well as contributing to job-creation and poverty alleviation. Explores the challenges and barriers for responsible development of the industry.
Outlines the opportunities for the private sector to support the objectives of the Decade of Ocean Science (2021-2030). Developed in collaboration with the UN Global Compact and IOC-UNESCO to raise the awareness of the Decade among private sector partners and draw the private sector’s attention to the key role of ocean science in building the blue economy in a sustainable manner.
Defines the unique characteristics possessed by leaders who are integrating sustainability across strategy, operations and stakeholder engagement and what this means for how CEOs, board members and executives are selected. Based on interviews with Board Members and CEOs, this white paper makes clear that the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires transformational business leaders who understand the need to look beyond near-term profits and embrace their role as change agents — both within and beyond their firms and broader ecosystems. This report is available in English and Chinese.
Provides an assessment of how companies participating in the UN Global Compact are adopting the Ten Principles and taking action to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based on data collected as part of the UN Global Compact annual survey, the report takes stock of how businesses are performing on critical sustainability topics. For the first time, the 2020 report reviews data from a sectoral perspective. It also dives into the current state of progress for specific industry contributions to the SDGs. Broadly, the report finds that companies need to take more ambitious actions, at scale, to meet the objectives of the 2030 Agenda and create the world we want. This special 20th-anniversary edition of the UN Global Compact Progress Report was developed in collaboration with DNV GL.
The black summer of 2019-2020 has seen the Australian landscape suffer unprecedented destruction. Climate change will continue to dramatically alter our environment, threatening political stability, degrading entire ecosystems, displacing whole communities and undermining business operations. To respond, businesses will need to undergo drastic transformations, embrace emerging economic opportunities and deeply embed principles of sustainability. Businesses no longer have the luxury of time. They must step away from a business as usual approach and reposition themselves as more responsible and sustainably savvy. In 2020, activism will continue to grow globally; lack of trust in both public and private institutions shows no signs of waning; investor pressures on businesses to perform better in matters of ESG will become more pointed; the gap between those that understand business ethics versus those that do not will grow; and the need for business leaders to set bolder human rights and environmental targets will become more pronounced. This report outlines the key pressures facing businesses in 2020, and what companies can do to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the challenges in our landscape to ensure their long-term viability. The opportunity for business to respond and lead the change is clear. How they choose to tackle these major pressures however will be both critical and defining.
The recent Black Summer of bushfires has sharpened the focus on how climate change affects health and served as a wake-up call for governments and business to understand the cost of inaction. Whilst climate change is often marked by extreme weather events, rising sea levels and polar bears teetering on melting ice sheets, the impacts on human health if left unaddressed could be devastating. The challenges ahead are immense but as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced, so too does the opportunity for government and business to implement measures that align with the Paris Agreement. Explore what your organisation can do to take action. Read Now
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.