In this year’s Special Edition of the UN Global Compact-Accenture Strategy CEO Study, the world’s largest program of CEO research on sustainability, we focus our attention on transforming partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Following a decade of research into the views of business leaders worldwide, we examine the views of UN leaders. As the UN Secretary-General calls for enhanced cooperation between the United Nations and the private sector, we ask agency heads and partnership practitioners across the UN system: what will it take to scale up partnerships to bring about transformational impact on the SDGs?

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.

This publication identifies a range of concrete actions that Governments and international organizations can undertake to better assist private-sector efforts to promote effective conflict-sensitive business practices.

Serves as a step-by-step roadmap for maximizing the transformative potential of partnerships.

Illustrates how different types of UN-Business partnerships can contribute to development objectives, and show the win-win potential of collaboration.

This paper explores recent developments and best practices in supply chain transparency, supplier engagement, and responses to shifts in trade and globalization.

Assists UN practitioners and corporate representatives to effectively design, implement and evaluate UN-business partnerships.

The private sector plays an essential role in humanitarian preparedness, response, and recovery efforts, but large numbers of independent actors - no matter how well intentioned - can introduce complexity and potential duplication of efforts, particularly when companies react in an ad hoc or uncoordinated way.  To deliver maximum impact, many forward-thinking companies have begun to forge private-sector networks. These networks of companies and local businesses collaborate in a country or region to strengthen their own risk preparedness and to mobilize and coordinate the private-sector response to an emergency.  The paper discusses the role of the private sector in disaster prevention, preparedness, response and recovery efforts and introduces ideas how companies can collaborate better to become more resilient themselves and reduce duplication and deliver maximum impact supporting humanitarian efforts.

This guide explores the role of corporate finance and investments in scaling finance for the Sustainable Development Goals, including how FDI, financial intermediation and public-private partnerships can be a source of finance for less liquid SDG investments that cannot be invested directly by portfolio or institutional investors. This includes providing access to finance in countries with less developed financial markets or for SDG solutions that are too small or illiquid to attract portfolio investors.  

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.

Provides guidance on how to initiate and implement anti-corruption collective action initiatives while showcasing various examples from collective action projects worldwide.

Strong rule of law is essential as a foundation for economic and social development. The Framework seeks to advance the rule of law by engaging responsible business to support the building and strengthening of legal frameworks and accountable institutions – serving as a complement to, not substitute for, government action.