This guide explores the role of the bond market – the largest asset class in the global financial markets – in the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With US$ 6.7 trillion of annual issuance, bonds can provide a cheap, reliable and scalable source of capital for a variety of stakeholders involved in the implementation of Agenda 2030, including companies, governments, cities and public-private partnerships. SDG bonds also provide an answer to the lack of SDG investment opportunities for institutional investors. A diverse portfolio of SDG Bonds, including sovereign, municipal, corporate and project bonds across developed and emerging markets could fulfill mainstream investors’ growing demand for impact while matching their risk-return appetite.

A Practice Note by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) seeking to help companies increase their understanding of the issue in a number of key areas.

This guide explores the role of corporate finance and investments in scaling finance for the Sustainable Development Goals, including how FDI, financial intermediation and public-private partnerships can be a source of finance for less liquid SDG investments that cannot be invested directly by portfolio or institutional investors. This includes providing access to finance in countries with less developed financial markets or for SDG solutions that are too small or illiquid to attract portfolio investors.  

Investigates six sectors and analyzes how selected companies have turned climate risks into climate opportunities. Considered one of the most urgent risks, climate change is already determining how markets are evolving. Factors like new consumer preferences, new regulations, changing investor focus and market prices will increasingly favour the climate, and create a new kind of pressure on companies.

Describes how National Human Rights Institutions and Global Compact Local Networks can collaborate to help businesses understand and meet their human rights responsibilities and commitments.

Migrant workers are often susceptible to unfair recruitment and hiring practices, leaving them highly vulnerable to exploitation. For many, the debt burden they carry from excessive recruitment fees and migration costs exacerbates this vulnerability and can lead to debt bondage and forced labour. This note calls on business to take action to address such exploitative practices and their associated risk to labour abuse. References to relevant international standards and links to multi-stakeholder initiatives and additional resources are included to provide further guidance.

Includes resources for seven key stakeholders: Brands, Suppliers, Governments, Advocates, Investors, Auditors, and Multi-Stakeholders. The Toolkit provides guidance for each of the stakeholders in taking action to improve hiring and labour conditions. The guidelines and resources are tailored and focused toward stakeholders in different sectors and at different levels, encouraging stakeholders to effectively implement socially responsible hiring practices and supply chain sustainability.

Designed to provide information that will inform both how individual companies can respect the human right to water, as well as how the CEO Water Mandate itself can meaningfully contribute to business’ ability to effectively address this issue.

This Guide aims to help Global Compact Local Networks get involved in their country's development of a National Action Plan on business and Human Rights. It provides basic information about National Action Plans, discusses the countries that have or are in the process of developing them, sets out the various opportunities available to Local Networks to get engaged, and lists additional resources that can be referred to for more information.

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

The approximately 2 billion adults that make up the world’s poor and often marginalised struggle to get by without access to formal financial services and tools. Through digital technology and innovation, new business models are being developed with the power to draw underbanked citizens into the formal economy, creating economic opportunities for the poor. As a result, digital solutions such as mobile banking, user interface systems and online impact investing are expanding the customer base and creating new markets for both new and traditional financial service providers. Jointly hosted by the UN Global Compact, Accenture and CARE International UK, this webinar provides an overview of financial inclusion and the digital opportunities available for serving a large untapped market, it offers guidance on how to leverage digital solutions to be more financially inclusive and raises awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals, including encouraging action in support of Goal 1 on ending poverty and Goal 10 on reducing inequality.

Learn about how companies in the UN Global Compact are taking action to advance corporate sustainability around the world.