(New York, 7 June 2011) – When it comes to broad implementation of responsible business practices, company size matters most. And while businesses around the world seem to be making tangible progress in addressing environmental concerns, many continue to struggle in the human rights and anti-corruption arena.

These are among the findings of the UN Global Compact’s latest Implementation Survey, one of the most comprehensive global surveys on corporate sustainability performance. Completed anonymously by more than 1,200 companies participating in the UN corporate responsibility initiative, the survey forms the basis of the 2010 Global Compact Annual Review, which was launched at UN Headquarters today.

Among the key findings:

• Large and publicly traded companies are performing at higher levels on all of the Global Compact’s issue areas (human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption) than small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), pointing to the availability of greater financial and human resources to support extensive sustainability programs.
• Reflective of the growing relevance of sustainability issues to business performance, more than 70 percent of all respondents indicate the active involvement of their chief executives in policy and strategy development. Nearly 60 percent of all publicly traded companies report active involvement of their boards of directors.
• Companies across the board report having anti-discrimination and equal opportunity policies in place – one of the few issues to transcend size or sector. Yet, less than 20 percent of all respondents report conducting human rights impact assessments and less than 30 percent record instances of corruption, with dramatic differences between SMEs and larger companies.
• Concerning supply chain implementation of sustainability principles, widely seen as critical in order to bring corporate responsibility to true scale, 65 percent of companies report some measure of supplier involvement, with 12 percent requiring their suppliers to be Global Compact participants.
• Likewise, 79 percent of companies spread their commitment to the Global Compact principles to their subsidiaries, with nearly half of those (44 percent) creating separate sustainability functions at the subsidiary level.
• Increasingly, businesses are recognizing the role of the private sector in advancing UN development objectives. Over half (56 percent) of survey respondents are engaged in some form of public-private partnership at the global or local level. Reflecting a broader trend by business to build on the growing sustainability market, 42 percent of all respondents said that they are developing products and services or designing business models that seek to contribute to UN priorities.

“While the sustainability movement has taken great strides in recent years, significant challenges remain,” said Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. “Helping smaller companies close performance gaps, stimulating collective action on all fronts and making a stronger case for human rights and anti-corruption engagement will be critical if we are to bring corporate responsibility to scale.”

Overall, the Global Compact continued to grow in 2010 and now includes more than 6,000 business participants, as well as more than 3,000 non-business signatories. More than half of all businesses in the initiative are small and medium-size enterprises. The countries with the highest numbers of participants are France, Spain, the US and Brazil.

• Download the UN Global Compact Annual Review 2010
  
• Download Key Findings

4. When people ask what they can do to help, effective assistance includes making friends, family and associates aware of the major issue of marine debris in our ocean. Individuals can also affect small changes in behavior that can be emulated by others and be part of the solution. Individuals can also make donations to Project Kaisei / Ocean Voyages Institute to assist us in our work. Volunteers can help us on board the ship, in the office and in communicating information to their family, friends and communities via conversations and presentations that communicate the urgent problem of plastics in our global ocean.

5. Solutions begin with acknowledging and defining the problem. Through Project Kaisei/Ocean Voyages Institute’s expeditions, we seek to inform, educate and encourage individual consumers all the way up to state and federal government officials to devise innovative solutions to reduce one-time use plastics. This includes awareness of personal consumption habits and ways to live a lifestyle that has less impact on the environment. Stopping the flow of marine debris into the global ocean is of urgent importance. Project Kaisei / Ocean Voyages Institute is working with experts in the maritime industry to devise marine debris collection devices to be used both in coastal areas and in the Gyre for cleanup. Ocean Conservancy’s 25th International Coastal Cleanup on September 25th also heralds the importance of continual cleanup and awareness. PK/OVI’s expeditions are meant to educate and create change globally. PK/OVI and Ocean Conservancy’s collaboration on the marine debris issue is an important step towards future global collaborations to address solutions.

The issue of marine debris is complicated and solutions include recycling, legislation that encourages recycling, a philosophy of manufacturing that encourages reusing products. You can ask your representatives in Congress to strengthen and reauthorize the Marine Debris Research, Prevention and Reduction Act.

PLANETE - Les Nations unies lancent la Décennie de lutte contre la désertification...

Un milliard de personnes dans près de cent pays du monde sont menacées par l’avancée du désert. Ce lundi s’est ouvert à Fortaleza, au Brésil, la 2^ème conférence internationale sur le climat et le développement durable dans les régions semi-arides, sous l’égide des Nations unies. C’est l’occasion pour la communauté internationale de donner le coup d’envoi de la Décennie de lutte contre la désertification (2010-2020), destinée à enrayer la progression des zones désertiques dans le monde.

Environmentalists may not change. In a way it's almost irrelevant whether environmentalists change and take the lead because the political situation suggests that we don't have the global institutions to deal with a global problem. A lot of the best information comes from the United Nations, the United Nations studies on cities and slums and things like this and population are about the best source you can find.

If it weren't there, we wouldn't have good information about those things, but it does not have administrative power. We probably don't want a planetary government but I suspect that if we go too far down climate catastrophe that could be something you wind up with, a bad planetary government. What you want is planetary collaboration mainly of the main governments that exist now.

STEWART BRAND is cofounder and co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation. He is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, cofounder of The Well, and cofounder of Global Business Network.

Currently, an increasing number of local events and actions about global warming are organized by individuals or groups in different parts of the world. The efficiency and effectiveness of these efforts would be maximized only if people act together.

The aim of the non-profit, non-political web platform in the morning of a day ® is:

• to provide activists and event organizers with an opportunity to announce and promote their events and actions about global warming.
• to inform the general public about these events and actions, and give them the opportunity to participate in them
• to connect the event organizers, by informing them about each others' actions

Additionally, to strengthen and promote the idea of collective action, this platform offers a song, called in the morning of a day. Feel free to listen to it, download it, sing it and share it with others, in order to raise global warming awareness.

All the information posted on this platform is organized in detail and shared with all its users.

Before we start talking about ways to “green your design,” we must first visit the office space in which you’re working. I feel it’s important to practice what you preach. For example, if you’re telling your clients to use less paper, don’t keep your trash can filled with old print-outs while your recycle bin is empty.