UN Global Compact Leaders Summit (5. - 6. July 2007)

What is the Global Compact

The United Nations Global Compact was launched at UN Headquarters in New York on 26th of July 2000 in order to bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. Today it is the world’s largest, global corporate citizenship initiative with more than 4000 stakeholders in 116 countries. Through the power of collective action, the Global Compact seeks to promote responsible corporate citizenship so that business can be a part of the solution to the challenges of globalization.

The Global Compact is a purely voluntary initiative. The companies themselves decide to become the members of the Global Compact and chose the way how they will implement ten principles in practice. Each year the participating companies are expected to publish their reports on the progress within the official web-site of the Global Compact. If the company fails to submit a progress report it can lose its member status.

The Global Compact faces some critics however. It is said that companies chose to join the Global Compact just to be able to use the Global Compact’s logo and hence improve their reputations. The main reason for companies to join the Global Compact is its connection with the United Nations.

Global Compact Leaders Summit (5. – 6. July 2007)

As this criticism might be true for some members, the Global Compact Leaders Summit which was held from 5th till 6th of June 2007 in Geneva proved that there are many companies which truly support the ideas of CSR and are active within the Global Compact.

The Summit was the second similar event in the history of the Global Compact. It gathered 1000 leaders from Business, Government, Civil Society and UN itself. The Summit provided the participants of Global Compact with unique opportunity to discuss the Global Compact and corporate citizenship at the highest level and to produce strategic recommendations and action imperatives related to the future evolution of the initiative.

The Summit was officially opened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who in his speech stated, that the UN has successfully created an international movement of companies dedicated to advancing responsible business practices.

The representatives of business community approved the words of the Secretary-General by presenting their comprehensive studies showing benefits of corporate social responsibility. UN Global Compact also released its first Annual Review, a comprehensive survey that monitors the extent to which companies have implemented the ten Global Compact principles. The examples of other important initiatives launched during the Summit are but not limited to the ‘Caring for Climate’ platform, ‘The Principles for Responsible Management Education’, the ‘CEO Water Mandate’, the ‘Principles for Responsible Investment and the Geneva Declaration adopted by the executives of world biggest corporations, which spells out concrete actions for business, governments and United Nations Global Compact participants.

The GIMUN and the Leaders Summit

Of course the smooth and successful course of the Summit would be impossible without dedicated work of its organizing team. The volunteers from GIMUN helped the organizers throughout the Summit. They were trusted various tasks such as registration of the participants, meeting governmental officials, monitoring the rooms where the sessions took place, assisting the participants of the Summit during the welcoming reception and Gala Diner. This unforgettable experience gave the volunteers an opportunity to increase their knowledge on social corporate responsibility and UN Global Compact, listen to the speeches of prominent speakers, exchange views and opinions among each other and with Global Compact team members.

In 21st century world business constitutes the major power which in many spheres shapes the course of international affairs and that is why it is so vitally important for business to be socially responsible. The UN Global Compact seeks to make a bridge between traditional policy-makers (UN, Governments) and business sector in order to facilitate more sustainable and efficient world order.