Outreach Event: Architects for a Better World
10 December 2013
Hosted by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)

Earlier this year at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon unveiled the UNGC’s Post-2015 Business Engagement Architecture. It is designed to encourage businesses to keep putting responsible business practices and sustainability objectives at the heart of their business strategies and to invite organisations, initiatives and networks working to engage business on sustainable development to join forces to promote and support corporate commitments and actions that advance UN goals.

Collaboration and commitment are at the core of the new architecture.

At this event, key stakeholders of the Business Architecture – companies, investors, government, and civil society – will share insights and inspiring examples of innovative partnerships for development that support the UN’s agenda.

Speakers included:

  • Rt Hon. Justine Greening MP, UK Secretary of State for International Development
  • Jon Pender, Vice President, IP & Access, Global Health, GSK
  • Dominic Vergine, Director of Sustainable Development, ARM plc
  • Nicky Black, Head of Social Performance, De Beers
  • Ursula Hartenburger, Global Head of Sustainability, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyor

Advanced Reporting Summit
26 November 2013
Hosted by GlaxoSmithKline

Supply Chain Series Webinar: Focus on China
14 November 2013
For more information visit the Sedex website.

Fourth Quarterly Meeting: Current issues in the fight against corruption
12 November 2013
Hosted by Rio Tinto

Corruption represents a serious risk for companies on a number of fronts and is a particular concern for multinationals operating in counties where bribery may be considered a normal part of business.

This meeting sought to address the following questions:
How do companies ensure they have robust transparency measures in place? How can they create comprehensive anti-corruption systems across operations which span many diverse markets? Are facilitation payments illegal or not? Fundamentally, how can companies contribute to an environment which supports transparency and integrity?

Speakers included:

  • Lord Browne of Ladyton, All Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-corruption
  • Roderick Macauley, Bribery Act Implementation Manager, Ministry of Justice
  • Peter van Veen, Director, Business Integrity Programme, Transparency International UK
  • Emily Roche, Senior Counsel – Competition, Rio Tinto
  • Graham Baldock, Global Head of Anti-Bribery & Corruption, HSBC

Download the news story
Meeting report to follow.

Supply Chain Series Webinar: Focus on South America
24 October 2013
For more information visit the Sedex website.

Supply Chain Series Event: Enabling Sustainable Practices in Supply Chains
9 October 2013
Hosted by HSBC
Pressures on companies to monitor and understand their supply chains have never been greater. At this event participants learned from the lessons of businesses on this issue and participated in B2B, peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and learning, facilitated by UNGC-UK and Sedex.

For more information and to register, visit the Sedex website.

Third Quarterly Meeting: Water Stewardship
10 September 2013
Hosted by Reed Elsevier

This event addressed why businesses should engage in water stewardship and how they can engage in water stewardship, with practical examples from businesses.
Speakers included:

  • Stuart Orr, WWF
  • Cate Lamb, Head of Water, CDP
  • David Norman, Senior Manager – Sustainable Development Policy, SAB Miller
  • Kevin Agnew, Global Environment Manager, Reed Elsevier

Download the meeting report:

Supply Chain Series Webinar: Focus on South East Asia
9 July 2013

This webinar identified top line trends, challenges and opportunities of South & South East Asia supply chains with a focus on risk and performance management, from data gathered by global supply chain experts Sedex and from leading risk experts Maplecroft, as well as insight from a leading NGO and company working in South & South East Asia.

You can access a recording of the webinar here.

Business and Human Rights Training: Operationalising the UN Guiding Principles
4-5 July 2013
Hosted by De Beers
This training aimed to demystify human rights, give a business orientation to the UN Guiding Principles and provide practical, bespoke advice on their implementation. The programme was tailored to participants’ specific needs and covered 10 critical insights companies need to implement the Guiding Principles.

Supply Chain Series Event: Focus on Africa
10 June 2013
Hosted by Sedex

This webinar identified top line trends, challenges and opportunities of Africa supply chains with a focus on risk and performance management, from data gathered by global supply chain experts Sedex and from leading risk experts Maplecroft, as well as insight from a leading NGO and company working in Africa.

This webinar highlighted:

  • The key challenges and risks affecting African supply chains.
  • Insight into the most common supply chain issues from data from the world’s largest collaborative platform for managing and sharing ethical supply chain data.
  • Important context to support companies working in this continent to understand, monitor and manage their supply chains risks and improve standards.

Speakers included:

  • Steve Kenzie – Head of the UNGC Network UK Secretariat
  • Jo Webb – Head of Stakeholder Relations, Sedex Global
  • James Smither – Associate Director, Maplecroft
  • Lara Ladipo – Executive Director, Partner Africa

You can access the recording of the webinar here.

Second Quarterly Meeting: Business and Human Rights – A Guide to the Guiding Principles
22 May 2013

Every company will say that it “respects human rights” – what else can they say?
In the past it really wasn’t clear what it meant to respect human rights from the perspective of a company. That changed on 16 June 2011, when the UN Human Rights Council endorsed the “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework” proposed by UN Special Representative John Ruggie.
Now, it is fairly clear what is expected of companies in this area and soon these expectations will be entrenched in national laws. Companies need to understand the implications of the Guiding Principles and take action. The purpose of this meeting was to assist them in doing so.

The panel comprised:

  • Rae Lindsay, Partner, Litigation and Dispute Resolution Practice, Clifford Chance
  • Rachel Cowburn-Walden, Global External Affairs Manager – Corporate Responsibility, Unilever
  • Peter Frankental, Economic Relations Programme Director, Amnesty International UK
  • Haley St. Dennis, Programme Support Manager, Due Diligence, Institute for Human Rights & Business
  • Karen Jochelson, Director of Economy and Employment, Equality and Human Rights Commission
  • Tom Kennedy, Deputy Head, Human Rights & Democracy Department, FCO

Download the news story here.

Annual Local Networks Forum
24-26 April
UNGC, Geneva

Webinar: Communicating the GC

On Thursday 21 March and Tuesday 16 April the UNGC UK Network, in collaboration with UN Global Compact HQ, held a webinar to help participants communicate about the UNGC. Webinar facilities were generously provided by Reed Elsevier.

When a company becomes a signatory to the UN Global Compact, the CEO makes a number of commitments, one of which is to: Advance the Global Compact through advocacy and active outreach to peers, partners, clients, consumers and the public at large.

We recognize that communicating about the UNGC can be quite challenging. To address this problem, our Webinar answered the questions:

  • What is the Global Compact?
  • Why is it worth communicating?
  • How should you communicate about it?

Many thanks to Sean Cruse from the Global Compact office and Reed Elsevier for their support.

Download the slides from the webinar here.
Click here to see a recording of the webinar.

Please note: due to technical difficulties, we unfortunately had to pause the webinar between 00:13:40 and 00:22:05 – we recommend skipping over this section of the recording.

First Quarterly Meeting: Equality Means Business

26 February 2013
London, UK
The different between men and women’s average earnings in the UK is still over 20%, increasingly dramatically with age. What are the implications for equity in the workplace and society as a whole? This meeting explored issues of gender diversity and equality and introduced participants to the Women’s Empowerment Principles which offer practical guidelines to companies on how to address gender and equality issues, emphasizing the business case for action and drawing on good corporate practice around the globe.

Speakers included: Zoë Young, Associate Director, Diversity & Inclusion at KPMG; Jan Grasty, UN Women UK President; Laura Haynes, Trustee of UN Women UK; Helen Wilson, Head of Responsibility Business of Old Mutual plc and Theresa White, Head of Employee Relations, Inclusion and Diversity at G4S.

Read the meeting report: