In an address to The World Economic Forum on 31 January 1999, United Nation Secretary-General Kofi
Annan challenged business leaders to join an international initiative – the Global Compact – that would
bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support nine (now ten) principles
in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption.
Through the power of collective action, the Global Compact seeks to advance responsible corporate
citizenship so that business can be part of the solution to the challenges of globalisation. In this way,
the private sector – in partnership with other social actors – can help realise the Secretary-General’s vision:
a more sustainable and inclusive global economy.
The ten principles are:
Human Rights
- Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights within their sphere of influence; and
- make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
Labour Standards
- Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
- the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
- the effective abolition of child labour; and
- eliminate discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
Environment
- Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
- undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
- encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies
Anti Corruption
- Businesses should work against all forms of corruption, including extortion and bribery
Today, hundreds of companies from all regions of the world, international labour and civil society organizations are engaged in the Global Compact.
The Consortium joined the Global Compact in 2004 , one of the first SME’s in the UK, mainly because we supported its aims, but also it provided a simple way for us to ensure that we were doing the ‘right things’ in the ‘way that we do things round here’.
Once a year we have to submit a report to Global Compact on the progress that we have made and it has to be published on our internet site.
We encourage both suppliers and customers to support the Global Compact and we believe that in the future it may be one of the measures by which we access the suitability of those suppliers that we deal with.
The Global Compact now has over 4000 members from more than 80 countries. To quote Matthew Kiernan, CEO of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, “The Global Compact today is the largest corporate responsibility initiative in the world so these Communications on Progress will be increasingly important as financial markets evaluate corporate performance on the range of environmental, social and governance issues”.
From the perspective of SME’s and CSR, it is becoming a widely-held belief that the Global Compact is the best ‘first-step’ for organisations to develop their business performance as a result of taking a broad approach to environmental and sociological as well as business issues.