UN Global Compact
BPW Australia and the UN Global CompactIn 2011 BPW Australia became, and remains, the only BPW International Affiliate to become a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact. You can read the results of a recent survey of clubs that demonstrated our members’ commitment to the principles of the Compact. NEWS: Equileap - an organisation aiming to advance gender equality in the workplace - ranked over 3,000 companies across 19 gender equality criteria, and reported on the progress towards equality within 200 companies. Global Compact Network Australia members NAB and Westpac were ranked in the top 10 in the global 2017 Gender Equality Report and Ranking, and Transurban was ranked in the top 20, joining only six other companies in reporting no gender pay gap. Read their 2017 ranking report here: http://equileap.org/educate/ Sustainable Development Goals
A very exciting and innovative change has been developed by the United Nations especially regarding gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. The SDGs will be an invaluable tool for BPW Australia Clubs to compare their activities to the SDG goals to improve women’s rights, read more…….  |
The UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative used by organisations around the world. It is a practical framework for the development, implementation and disclosure of sustainability policies and practices, offering participants a wide spectrum of workstreams, management tools and resources all designed to help advance sustainable business models and markets.
Whether you are a SME, start-up or large organisation, this policy initiative will help you align your operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. By doing so, business, as a primary driver of globalisation, can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere.
The UN Global Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values:
- Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
- Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
- Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
- Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
- Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and
- Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
- Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
- Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
- Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
- Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
The Global Compact is an endorsed and globally-recognised way for the private sector to review, plan for and manage increasingly complex risks and opportunities in the environmental, social and governance realms, while embedding markets and societies with universal principles and values that benefit all.
BPW Australia is one of thousands of organisations that have committed to the Global Compact¹s two complementary objectives:
1. To mainstream the ten principles in business activities around the world
2. Catalyse action in support of broader UN goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
As a signatory to the Global Compact, we encourage our members, sponsors, supporters and partners to seek collaborative solutions to the most fundamental challenges facing both business and society. We believe the best outcomes will be found when all stakeholders in our future work together business, government, community and the UN and this initiative is a means to achieve that.
The Global Compact brings together the moral authority and convening power of the UN, the private sector’s solution-finding strengths, and the expertise and capacities of key stakeholders in international debate. The Global Compact is global and local; private and public; voluntary yet accountable.
For more information about the benefits of being a signatory, go to www.unglobalcompact.org