About the UNGC

The establishment of the UN Global Compact was announced in an address to The World Economic forum on 31 January 1999 by the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.  It was officially launched at the UN Headquarters in New York on 26 July 2000.

The UN global Compact exists to assist the private sector in the management of increasingly complex risks and opportunities in the environmental, social and governance realms.  By partnering with companies and leveraging the expertise and capacities of a range of other stakeholders, the UN Global Compact seeks to embed the Ten Principles in markets and corporate boardrooms, for the benefit of both businesses and society around the world.

The Global Compact has two key purposes:

1. To encourage the integration of its ten principles into responsible business practice; and
2. To garner collective action of the UN Global Compact and its related UN initiatives.

The UN Global compact relies on public accountability, transparency and the enlightened self-interest of all the relevant social actors: governments, who defined the principles on which the initiative is based; companies, whose actions it seeks to influence; labour, in whose hands the concrete process of global production takes place; and civil society organisations, representing the wider community of stakeholders.

Businesses become signatories to the UN Global Compact and demonstrate tangible actions to support the Ten Principles by submitting formal Communications on Progress on an annual basis.

The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact are the guiding and overarching elements through which other programs are delivered, developed and built. For example, business signs up to the Ten Principles because they are broad enough to encompass some of the major challenges that each organisation faces – such as, how we further support fair labour conditions, how we minimise our environmental impacts, how we support and seek to improve human rights and how we build capacity to both be aware of, and confront corrupt behaviour. Generally, they are Principles through which all business and industry, regardless of geography or market sector, can support and adhere to. In this way, the Ten Principles sit above (and indeed underpin) all other programs within the UN Global Compact framework.