A dramatic rise of interlinked global challenges is forcing business executives to navigate new levels of uncertainty. The war in Ukraine is producing alarming cascading effects across a world already impacted by COVID-19 and climate change. The risks of generations lost, as well as waves of food insecurity, energy shortages, unfolding debt crises, and social unrest are very real. In this context of uncertainty, more and more chief executive officers (CEOs) are stepping into broader leadership capacities, propelled by business necessity and by evolving societal expectations of their role. The UN Global Compact has compiled perspectives from CEOs across the globe, to provide policymakers, companies, and the public with practical insights into business leadership in today’s novel and dynamic operating environment. This report describes how today’s CEOs face complex challenges to their operations—and to their sustainability agenda.

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.

Publication offers a basis for understanding the expectations set out in the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights in relation to grievance mechanisms. While implementing effective grievance mechanisms to tackle modern slavery remains challenging, businesses can utilise the case studies, that draw on types of grievance mechanisms used across a range of sectors, in the publication to design and implement their own effective grievance mechanisms.

Provides practical advice, flags key considerations, and outlines good practice steps for designing and implementing effective grievance mechanisms. The publication series supports business to know how to better hear and address instances of modern slavery.

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.

This publication is an introduction to SDG Ambition — an new initiative of the UN Global Compact. By raising ambition, deepening integration, and embracing new technologies we believe business can become a leading actor in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With the launch of SDG Ambition, the UN Global Compact is proud to share its new SDG Implementation Framework, which aims to guide companies to deepen integration of the SDGs and Ten Principles into business strategy, operations, and stakeholder engagement.

Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, more and more companies are disclosing how they are impacting them and contributing to their achievement. The examples featured below help businesses and interested stakeholders identify select current corporate SDG reporting practices. The examples focus on one or a few elements of the broader corporate reporting process and steps outlined in the ‘Practical Guide Integrating the SDGs into Corporate Reporting.’ Please consult the Practical Guide for best practices on SDG reporting.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

Building on the original Guide for General Counsel on Corporate Sustainability published in 2015, Version 2.0 provides further guidance to General Counsel to ensure they are better placed and better equipped to drive change and deliver value to their organizations through an increased focus on corporate sustainability. Topics include: Corporate Sustainability and Business Integrity Corporate Sustainability and Business Integrity Human Rights and Supply Chain Due Diligence Corporate Sustainability and Grievance Mechanisms Challenges to Corporate Sustainability - Managing a Crisis Please fill out the form below to download the full guide.