The Sustainability Learning Forum

Georg Kell about the Global Compact

Georg Kell, United Nations Global Compact

Since the very beginning, Georg Kell has been Executive Director of the Global Compact. Due to his ongoing fervour the Global Compact today is fully integrated into the UN system. We spoke with Georg Kell about the economic crisis, the search for new confidence, and the renaissance of politics and ethics. His message is clear: We have to reward sustainable business models. And we have to take climate change much more seriously, or the future might be rough. more[...]

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Visiting the Global Compact Office

Dr. Elmer Lenzen

When I went to New York in March 2009, it was during the peak of the banking crisis and the self-doubts of the investment sector. There was a prevailing certainty that one economic era had come to an end, but ambiguity as to how the new era would look. Some of these elements are being intensively discussed and developed at the Global Compact Office: It is about lasting nature, transparency, responsible merchants, and the respectful handling of our planet. more[...]

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From Global Compact to Global Leadership

Prof. V. Kasturi Rangan, Harvard Business School

The global financial crisis of 2008 was a stark reminder of business’s role in society. When well governed and well led, the role of business transcends one of profitability for its owners and incentives for its managers. Its role is to create value for society. Profit is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Without profit, there is no growth, and without growth there is no development. But if business does not create value and instead divvies up the same pie over and over again for personal gains (remember the subprime mortgages, collateral debt obligations, and credit default swaps?), then it is bound to fail and cause havoc for society. more[...]

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The Human Rights and Business Dilemma

Verisk Maplecroft
United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)

Human rights have traditionally been the concern of states, and international human rights law has generally been addressed to them only. As more companies come to realize their legal, moral, and/or commercial need to address human rights issues within their own operations and activities, they are confronted with a number of challenges. Businesses will have to come to grips with the human rights framework and assess how their activities may relate to it. Moreover, companies are often uncertain how to avoid complicity in human rights abuses and where, in practical terms, the boundaries of their human rights responsibility lie. more[...] login_required

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Sustainability 2.0 – Looking Beyond the Factory Gates

Volker Hasenberg, PE INTERNATIONAL
Celine Furnanz, PE INTERNATIONAL
Thinkstep

PE INTERNATIONAL is a leading sustainability consulting service and software solution provider. PE embraces sustainability as a strategic issue that will influence future competiveness of business and will enable a business transformation in long-term. PE supported for example PUMA in developping a new sustainable packaging with the help of a Life Cycle Analysis. It also helped NiroSan Multifit to build an eco-efficient production facility. more[...] login_required

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Sustainability 2.0 – Looking Beyond the Factory Gates

Volker Hasenberg, PE INTERNATIONAL
Celine Furnanz, PE INTERNATIONAL

PE INTERNATIONAL is a leading sustainability consulting service and software solution provider. PE embraces sustainability as a strategic issue that will influence future competiveness of business and will enable a business transformation in long-term. As a globally operating software and consulting company, PE also intends to help companies worldwide, through its products and services, to become sustainability leaders themselves. more[...]

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Work towards “Zero Deforestation”

Editorial Team

Engaged since 1997 in an approach to control the sourcing of its wood supplies, Carrefour has been working with WWF since 1998 to privilege FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) -certified wood. The Group is now stepping up these efforts to positively influence all concerned supply chains through appropriate purchasing practices in order to preserve biodiversity, to reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure the respect of human rights. more[...] login_required

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Carrefour`s Commitment for 2020: Work towards “Zero Deforestation”

Sevda Latapie-Bayro, Carrefour
Carrefour Group

Engaged since 1997 in an approach to control the sourcing of its wood supplies, Carrefour has been working with WWF since 1998 to privilege FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) -certified wood. The Group is now stepping up these efforts to positively influence all concerned supply chains through appropriate purchasing practices in order to preserve biodiversity, to reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure the respect of human rights. more[...]

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Nagi, Walid

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Social Entrepreneurship in Times of Crisis

Mirjam Schöning, Schwaab Foundation

"At the end of the day, corporations are citizens too, and they should commit themselves in the same way good citizens would. It's important to emphasize here that other social forces must be involved: there's always at least one organization that is already implementing an idea, someone who has found a better approach to a certain segment of the population or an innovative solution to the same problem." more[...] login_required

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On the Eve of the MDG Review Summit

Anita Sharma, UN Millennium Campaign

When they signed the Millennium Declaration in 2000, world leaders made an historic promise to work together to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people. With its clear goals and deadlines, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) created the first-ever global compact in which rich and developing countries acknowledged shared responsibility to end extreme poverty and its root causes. more[...] login_required

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Kell, Georg

Editorial Team

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Under discussion with Lord Michael Hastings

Lord Michael Hastings, KPMG International

I think what has changed dramatically since those words were first written are two fundamental realities. One is the media-based interconnectivity in the world. It was so much easier in previous centuries and previous generations to disregard the complexities, the pain, the sufferings, and even the disasters that affect other parts of the world. more[...] login_required

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The Organizational Implementation of Corporate Citizenship

Prof. Andreas Georg Scherer, University of Zurich

The Communication on Progress (COP) policy is the central component of the UN Global Compact’s integrity measures. The policy establishes a mandatory reporting requirement for businesses to report annually on their progress in implementing the Ten Principles of the UNGC more[...] login_required

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European UN Global Compact Conference 2012

Editorial Team

The aim of the conference The Green Economy; Business Contribution to Securing Sustainability was to demonstrate how businesses can put theory in to practise. The Dutch Global Compact network and German Global Compact network consider the conference to be a true success. This succes was even more important for the Dutch network as is marked its first lustrum conference, after its founding in 2007. As such we would like to thank you for your contribution to this success and hope that you can put the results of the conference into practise in your daily operations. more[...] login_required

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