The 2018 United Nations Global Compact (UN Global Compact) Progress Report highlights the key data gathered this year from 1130 companies across 100 countries. These companies participated in the 2018 UN Global Compact Annual Survey, a comprehensive questionnaire of corporate participants that asks businesses to report on their sustainability commitments and action.

In 2018, the research focused on the level of engagement from CEOs and top executives. Business leaders are increasingly embedding corporate sustainability throughout their company’s strategy and operations and are encouraged to publicly communicate their actions. Further engagement on responsible action is not only limited to the internal organisational environment but also to external supply chain partners.

The progress report demonstrated a strong commitment from businesses across the four overarching categories of the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact.

This then translates into businesses taking action to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report shows current progress on each of the 17 sustainable development goals and considers impact measurement perspectives drawn from the wider literature and repository of the UN Global Compact. In conjunction, a case study example was provided with each SDG.

The top three SDGs companies are targeting and case study examples:

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being.

• AstraZeneca’s Young Health Programme (YHP) targets young people and focuses on the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Goal 5: Gender Equality

• L’Oreal has been at the forefront of promoting gender equality in the workplace. Women comprise 70% of L’Oreal’s workforce.

Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

• Nestle’s global youth initiative, Nestle Needs YOUth, was conceived with the objective of equipping 10 million young people with skills to improve employability

In contrast, Goal 14: Life below water and Goal 15: Life on Land are underperforming.

Companies participating in the UN Global Compact recognise that they are addressing the SDGs through adherence to the Ten Principles with 66% of respondents noting the connectedness. The report also notes that integrating the Ten Principles is reported to be the main business activity driving progress on the SDGs.

Businesses need to improve on the implementation of procedures to assess risk and impact on human rights, more than 450 million people work in supply chain related jobs, therefore more business action would have a significant impact on sustainable development.

Looking forward, there are many areas where the UN Global Compact can continue to work with business to enhance sustainability performance:

• 76% of companies want the UN Global Compact to focus on helping them implement sustainability into business strategy and operations
• 68% want to emulate good practice examples
• 75% report to have insufficient internal processes to monitor and measure sustainability impact, and
• 70% highlight the lack of standard performance metrics.

1. More than 90% of companies report that they have policies or practices in place covering all Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact.
2. Specific SDGs companies are focusing on - 69% focus on Goal 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth, 64% focus on Goal 5 on Gender Equality and 62% focus on Goal 3 on Good Health and Well-being. In contrast, Goal 14 on Life Below Water is targeted by only 13% of companies, while Goal 15 on Life on Land is targeted by just 21% of companies.
3. 1130 companies participated in this survey. Top five sectors represented, 213 industrial goods and services, 71 construction and materials, 70 technology, 57 financial services, and 57 food and beverage.
4. Approximately 86% of large companies with more than 50,000 employees report that they include corporate responsibility expectations in external documents such as contracts and purchase orders.
5. Top five aspects of human rights addressed in company policies are, 93% workplace health and safety, 92% non-discrimination, 89% gender equality, 76% health, 72% life, liberty, security of the person.
6. In 2018, 65% of companies report they publicly disclose their sustainability policies and practices. This is up from 50% of companies in 2008.
7. In 2018, 68% of companies report that the CEO is responsible for their corporate responsibility strategy, and 48% allocate this responsibility to the Board of Directors.
8. Approximately 37% of respondents report that they conduct corporate responsibility risk assessments, an increase from 32% in 2012.
9. Applying sustainability throughout the value chain is one of the main challenges that companies face in realising the commitment to the Ten Principles.