Sets out a simple and thorough process for any company, but particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to get started with identifying its potential human rights impacts on those people directly affected by its activities, and those whose lives it touches through its relationships with suppliers or other parties. It provides tools and approaches to understand what the business already does to address these impacts, and where it can improve.

Explores how sustainability pressures are transforming the ways we all work, live, and compete. As a part of the annual study by MIT Sloan Management Review's Sustainability & Innovation project, the 2014 research focused on the critical role of sustainability collaborations that address systemic issues, and on the role of the board of directors in guiding their companies’ sustainability efforts. As a whole, the study finds progress in companies making the fundamental shift in how they organize themselves and how their boards of directors act to address the profound challenges and risks that issues of sustainability present. But it also indicates that many business leaders have some distance to go to understand that the path to sustainability success is best traveled with others.

Establish the attributes of well-functioning and sustainable global food and agriculture systems, and articulate a common understanding of the resources, ecosystem services and socio-economic impacts needed to build resilience into these systems and the markets that they serve.

A step by step guide and webinar created to assist you in developing your COE.

Helps companies understand indigenous peoples’ rights and their relevance for business. The webinar focuses on recently released Global Compact resources on the rights of indigenous peoples. The webinar features emerging trends and practical guidance contained in these resources, as well as stakeholder perspectives and company examples.

The right of indigenous peoples to give or withhold free, prior, and informed consent (“FPIC”) for the use of their lands, resources, traditional knowledge, or intellectual property is among the special protections for indigenous peoples. This Good Practice Note provides background on the history of FPIC, without taking a definitive viewpoint on its legal status. The Note also explores the business case for obtaining FPIC and the challenges that are likely to arise in the process; outlines current company good practices to obtain FPIC; and discusses emerging practices that not only support FPIC but also long-term benefits for affected indigenous communities.

As a result of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses regardless of sector are paying greater attention to the actual and potential human rights impacts of their operations and business relationships on stakeholders. This webinar co-hosted by the UN Global Compact and the Danish Institute for Human Rights explored the various types of Human Rights Impact Assessments, including company, community and sector-based, analyzing both the impetus behind the assessments as well as lessons learned.

Helps companies to set the scope and objective for the external assessment of sustainability reports and/or COPs; understand the different approaches to inform the right type of assessment; and select a specific external assessment approach.

The examples in this publication offer an important step forward in providing companies with guidance on why and how they can make practical contributions in this area – in ways benefitting both their business and the societies where they operate.

Describes how National Human Rights Institutions and Global Compact Local Networks can collaborate to help businesses understand and meet their human rights responsibilities and commitments.

Advances a common approach to corporate water disclosure that addresses the complexity and local nature of water resources.

This paper articulates the need to allow companies to contribute to water management efforts, to assist them instead of excluding them, and to insist that they operate in a manner that justifies their presence and is welcomed by local stakeholders.