The United Nations Global Compact: Achievements, Trends and Challenges

by Andreas Rasche (Editor), Georg Kell (Editor), Ban Ki-moon (Foreword by)

Overview

The United Nations Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative that encourages businesses to support ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labor standards, the environment, and anti-corruption. It is the world's largest voluntary corporate responsibility initiative with more than 7,500 business and non-business participants in over 130 countries. This book reviews the first ten years of the Compact's existence (2000–2010) by presenting exclusively commissioned chapters from well-known scholars, practitioners from the business world and civil society, and Global Compact staff. They reflect on what the Global Compact has achieved, what trends it may have to respond to, and what challenges are ahead. The book contains not only up-to-date reflections but also debates recent changes to the structure of the Compact, including the Communication on Progress policy, the role of Global Compact Local Networks, and the role of emerging specialized initiatives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521198417
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/21/2010
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Andreas Rasche is Assistant Professor of Business in Society at Warwick Business School and since 2007 has worked as a consultant to the United Nations Global Compact Office in New York. He received his PhD in Strategic Management and Corporate Responsibility from the European Business School, Germany. His research focuses on global governance and transnational organizational regulation in the context of contested global issues. He has published widely in leading international journals on corporate responsibility and has guest edited special issues of various journals.

Georg Kell is the Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact. His career with the United Nations began in 1987 at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. In 1997, Mr Kell joined the Office of the UN Secretary-General in New York, where he spearheaded the development of new strategies to enhance private sector engagement with the work of the United Nations. As one of the Global Compact's key architects, he has led the initiative since its launch in 2000. A native of Germany, he holds advanced degrees in economics and engineering from the Technical University of Berlin.

Table of Contents

List of figures; List of tables; List of boxes; List of abbreviations; List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Foreword H. E. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Why this book matters! Eric Cornuel; The ten principles of the UN Global Compact; 1. Introduction: the United Nations Global Compact: retrospect and prospect Andreas Rasche and Georg Kell; Part I. Achievements, Trends and Challenges: Reflections on the Principles: 2. Making sense of the Global Compact human rights principles Klaus Leisinger, Aron Cramer and Faris Natour; 3. The promise of the Global Compact - a trade union perspective on the labour principles Guy Ryder; 4. The Global Compact environmental principles - achievements, trends and challenges Gregory Unruh; 5. 'Caring for Climate' - the business leadership platform Claude Fussler; 6. Anti-corruption - challenges and trends Huguette Labelle; Part II. Participants and Engagement Mechanisms: 7. Implementing the United Nations Global Compact Carolyn Y. Woo; 8. Academic institutions and the UN Global Compact - the principles for responsible management education Regina Wentzel Wolfe and Patricia H. Werhane; 9. Corporate responsibility and the business school agenda Birgit Kleymann and Pierre Tapie (with a comment by Eric Cornuel); 10. NGOs and the Global Compact - the link between civil society and corporations Oded Grajew; 11. Financial markets and the Global Compact - the principles for responsible investment James Gifford; 12. Learning from the roundtables on the sustainable enterprise economy - the UN Global Compact and the next ten years Malcolm McIntosh and Sandra Waddock; 13. The United Nations Global Compact as a learning approach Guido Palazzo and Andreas Georg Scherer; Part III. Governance and Communication on Progress: 14. The Global Compact's governance framework and integrity measures Ursula Wynhoven and Matthias Stausberg; 15. The Global Compact communication on progress policy - origins, trends and challenges Uzma Hamid and Oliver Johner; 16. COP reporting in action - the case of Petrobras Ana Paula Grether; 17. The Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative Paul Hohnen; Part IV. Local Networks: The Emerging Global-Local Link: 18. Building the Global Compact local network model - history and highlights Nessa Whelan; 19. The Global Compact as a network of networks Dirk Ulrich Gilbert; 20. Running a Global Compact local network - insights from the experience in Germany Constanze J. Helmchen; 21. Building corporate citizenship through the UN Global Compact - contributions and lessons learnt from the Argentinean local network Flavio Fuertes and Nicolás Liarte-Vejrup; 22. Concluding remarks - from alleviating the negative impacts of globalization to transforming markets Ernst Brugger and Peter Maurer; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

“This timely book reviews the UN Global Compact's strengths and shortcomings over its first decade and provides helpful guidance for all committed to mainstreaming responsible business practices and achieving real change through multistakeholder initiatives.”
– Mary Robinson, President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, Former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

“By orders of magnitude, the Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative —and one of the United Nations’ true success stories. As such, it deserves a comprehensive analysis. With this book, it has got it. Encyclopedic in scope, the volume touches on all facets of the Global Compact’s ideas, ideals, innovative organizational modalities and impact. It will be an indispensable reference work, and an inspiration to global norm entrepreneurs in every field, for many years to come. It is a ‘must-read’ for anyone interested in sustainable globalization, which includes most if not all of us.”
– Professor John G. Ruggie, Harvard University and Special Representative of UN Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights

“provides an extensive and diverse assessment of the Global Compact initiative, its history, dynamics and diffusion process. This makes it most useful for anyone interested in voluntary standards and initiatives, the effectiveness of CSR and the relationship between business and society in general. The combination of academics (some of whomsit on company boards) and practitioners (many of whomare also active in the academy) not only reflects the make-up of the multi-stakeholder initiative but also provides for a unique mixture of academic assessment and inside knowledge that is crucial for understanding how a global initiative can work and have an impact, or fail.” -Nicole Janz , University of Cambridge, Cambridge Review of International Affairs

“While not aiming to be a comprehensive summary of the first decade of UNGC, the book does an excellent job in evaluating the initiative’s achievements, a good job at examining key trends in corporate responsibility, and a fair job at listing and addressing past and potential future challenges of the initiative...this book offers an invaluable and reflective look back at the first decade of the UN Global Compact and perspectives on what lies ahead. As such, it definitely deserves a place in the bookshelf of corporate managers, policy makers, civil society representatives, and especially scholars interested in corporate responsibility.”-Arno Kourula, University of Amsterdam Business School, Business & Society

From the Publisher