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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Agenda<br />
10 th Anniversary<br />
James Gifford<br />
There is now a critical mass of institutional investors who believe management<br />
of corporate responsibility is important to the long-term financial<br />
success of their investments. Hundreds of investors are now integrating<br />
a range of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues in<br />
decision-making processes, as well as in the ongoing dialogue they have with<br />
investee companies. In the last 10 years, the UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> has become<br />
one of the most important frameworks used by the investment community to<br />
evaluate companies’ performances across a whole range of ESG issues.<br />
The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) are aspirational guidelines for<br />
institutional investors on how to integrate ESG issues into investment processes,<br />
and were initially conceived as a natural extension of the UN <strong>Global</strong><br />
<strong>Compact</strong>, designed for investors rather than companies. Since their launch<br />
in April 2006, over 700 signatories have signed the Principles, representing<br />
assets of around $ 20 trillion.<br />
James Gifford is Executive Director of<br />
Principles for Responsible Investment.<br />
The PRI work side-by-side with the UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> to encourage investors<br />
and companies to move in tandem toward more sustainable capital markets.<br />
For example, in October 2008, a group of 52 PRI signatories across four<br />
continents called on thousands of listed companies to participate in the UN<br />
<strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong>. By November 2009, hundreds of companies had joined as a<br />
result of that letter, constituting one in four of all the publicly listed companies<br />
that signed up to the <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> in that period.<br />
Additionally, for three consecutive years, leading PRI signatories have contacted<br />
hundreds of UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> participant companies regarding the publication<br />
of a Communication on Progress report. The investors have commended<br />
the best reports and challenged those “laggard” companies that did not submit<br />
a report to do so. Last year, that engagement resulted in around half of the<br />
“laggard” companies subsequently submitting their reports.<br />
PRI signatories have also leveraged a number of <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> initiatives<br />
focused on issues such as corruption, water, and conflict-resolution as a platform<br />
to engage with investee companies.<br />
In short, the impact of the UN <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> within the global investment<br />
community has been of great significance in its first 10 years. Investor use<br />
of the <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> as a framework for dialogue with investee companies<br />
and within investment analysis has dramatically increased in recent<br />
years, and the <strong>Compact</strong> is set to play a vital role within the investor<br />
community for decades to come.<br />
<strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>Yearbook</strong> <strong>2010</strong> 17
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