Step 1: Understand your requirements

The enhanced Communication on Progress (CoP) consists of two elements:

• CEO Statement of Continued Support to publicly express your company’s ongoing commitment to the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact at the highest level. The statement is a standardized template that is signed electronically.

• CoP Questionnaire, which focuses on five disclosure areas (governance, human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption) and is designed to help participating companies monitor performance across the Ten Principles (access the questionnaire template here).

For the 2023 reporting year, a sustainability report uploaded through the interim digital platform can be submitted in lieu of the CoP questionnaire.

Step 2: Know your deadlines

2023 CoP submissions will be accepted within a 10-week window between mid-October (exact date TBA) and 31 December.

Companies that fail to complete and submit their CoP during this time period will be listed as ‘Non-communicating’ on their public participant profile as of 1 January 2024.

Companies can restore their ‘Active’ status by submitting a 2023 CoP before the start of the 2024 reporting period, or by submitting their 2024 CoP during the 2024 reporting period. Companies remaining in “Non-communicating” status will be delisted as of 1 January 2025.

Please note that no company will be delisted for failure to submit the 2023 CoP, but the UN Global Compact highly encourages all participants to demonstrate their commitment and progress toward the Ten Principles and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the 2023 interim digital platform.

Step 3: Prepare your report

• ✓    Confirm your CEO’s continued support of the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact.
• ✓    Review the CoP Questionnaire to understand the questions asked and the data that will need to be collected.
• ✓    Use the CoP Guidebook here to get information on how to answer the questions, find calculations and explore a glossary of key terms to help you complete the CoP questionnaire.
• ✓    Begin your data collection process on time! You can use the spreadsheet here to support your data collection process with relevant team members and the CoP Data Compilation Checklist here (see p. 74).
• ✓    Check that you have access to the UN Global Compact dashboard here. Refer to the user's guide to learn how to request credentials.

Step 4: Complete and submit your CoP

Once you have…

• ✓    Answered all questions in the CoP questionnaire
• ✓    Signed the CEO Statement of Continued support
• ✓    Uploaded relevant supplemental documentation (e.g. policies, sustainability report, etc) that you would like to VOLUNTARILY add to complement your submission
• ✓    Made a last review of the information provided

… you are ready to submit your CoP through the digital platform.

Step 5: Visualize your submitted CoP report

Upon submission of the CoP, all companies will be able to view their completed CoP report on their participant profile on the UN Global Compact website, where it will be accessible by any stakeholder and the public as an html web page and downloadable as a PDF.

Companies will also be able to visualize their CoP answers, track and understand performance and benchmark against peers through their data visualization dashboard on the CoP digital platform. The UN Global Compact will not score or rank of participating companies associated with the CoP questionnaire.