Global Compact International Yearbook Ausgabe 2010
A profound retrospective of the first decade of the UN Global Compact, challenges in the light of the year of biodiversity, and instruments for an adequate Corporate Citizenship are some of the issues highlighted in the new 2010 edition of the “Global Compact International Yearbook”. Among this years prominent authors are Ban Ki-moon, Bill Clinton, Joschka Fischer and Achim Steiner. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “As the Global Compact enters its second decade, it is my hope that this Yearbook will be an inspiration to bring responsible business to true scale.” Formally presented during the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York, the yearbook is now for sale. Looking back at the past ten years, the United Nations Global Compact has left its mark in a variety of ways, helping shape the conservation about corporate responsibility and diffusing the concept of a principle-based approach to doing business across the globe. Chapter two deals with Biodiversity: UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner emphasizes the importance of protecting the nature: “Climate change has been described as the biggest market failure of all time – the loss of biodiversity and nature’s economically-important services must surely be running a close second, if not an equal first. Year in and year out, the world economy may be losing services from forests to freshwaters and from soils to coral reefs, with resulting costs of up to $4.5 trillion or more. Decisive action needs to be taken to reverse these declines or the bill will continue to climb – and with it any hopes of achieving the poverty-related Millennium Development Goals and a sustainable 21st century for six billion people, rising to nine billion by 2050.” Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, adds: “Now is the time for concrete action from the business community to save life on earth. The alternative is an impoverished planet that can no longer support a healthy, vibrant global economy. The stakes in this fight could not be higher. As the slogan of the International Year reminds us, ‘Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.’”
A profound retrospective of the first decade of the UN Global Compact, challenges in the light of the year of biodiversity, and instruments for an adequate Corporate Citizenship are some of the issues highlighted in the new 2010 edition of the “Global Compact International Yearbook”. Among this years prominent authors are Ban Ki-moon, Bill Clinton, Joschka Fischer and Achim Steiner. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “As the Global Compact enters its second decade, it is my hope that this Yearbook will be an inspiration to bring responsible business to true scale.” Formally presented during the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York, the yearbook is now for sale. Looking back at the past ten years, the United Nations Global Compact has left its mark in a variety of ways, helping shape the conservation about corporate responsibility and diffusing the concept of a principle-based approach to doing business across the globe.
Chapter two deals with Biodiversity: UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner emphasizes the importance of protecting the nature: “Climate change has been described as the biggest market failure of all time – the loss of biodiversity and nature’s economically-important services must surely be running a close second, if not an equal first. Year in and year out, the world economy may be losing services from forests to freshwaters and from soils to coral reefs, with resulting costs of up to $4.5 trillion or more. Decisive action needs to be taken to reverse these declines or the bill will continue to climb – and with it any hopes of achieving the poverty-related Millennium Development Goals and a sustainable 21st century for six billion people, rising to nine billion by 2050.” Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, adds: “Now is the time for concrete action from the business community to save life on earth. The alternative is an impoverished planet that can no longer support a healthy, vibrant global economy. The stakes in this fight could not be higher. As the slogan of the International Year reminds us, ‘Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.’”
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ERNST R. LIGTERINGEN<br />
As the United Nations <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> celebrates its 10th anniversary,<br />
it serves us well to reflect upon the substantial advances made in the<br />
corporate commitment to sustainable development over the past 10<br />
years in which the UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> has played a crucial part.<br />
The landscape has changed significantly since 2000, when corporate responsibility<br />
was outlined in the Principles of the <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> and reporting<br />
on sustainability performance was in its infancy. Now we have a landscape<br />
where many thousands of entities underwrite the <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong>’s Principles<br />
and communicate that commitment – a landscape where governments, as in<br />
Denmark for example, refer to the UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> and to the <strong>Global</strong> Reporting<br />
Initiative (GRI) as a way for companies to demonstrate their sustainability<br />
performance. We have a landscape where stakeholders routinely expect from<br />
their companies disclosure on environmental, social, and governance performance.<br />
I have no doubt that a great deal of what has shaped these developments<br />
is the UNGC-GRI partnership.<br />
It has been three years since the appearance of the joint UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> /<br />
<strong>Global</strong> Reporting Initiative publication, Making the Connection, which links<br />
the “what to report” of the Communication on Progress to the “how to report”<br />
offered by GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Framework. Since then, this fruitful<br />
collaboration has continued to deliver results for users – most recently in the<br />
area of delivering better guidance to companies on reporting human rights.<br />
Ernst R. Ligteringen is Chief Executive of the<br />
<strong>Global</strong> Reporting Initiative.<br />
In a new decade with new needs, UNGC and GRI’s common vision of a sustainable<br />
economy will offer a platform for realizing the value of sustainable<br />
development: facilitating sustainable outcomes, requiring material<br />
performance disclosure, and making that information accessible for<br />
today’s and tomorrow’s stakeholders.<br />
16<br />
<strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>Yearbook</strong> <strong>2010</strong>
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