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GENEVA, July 5: Top executives from some of the world's biggest companies sought on Thursday to bolster a UN corporate responsibility pact, saying their firms would benefit from stricter rules on corruption and the environment.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon backed calls from the heads of Coca-Cola, Anglo American and Petrobras for more checks and balances to ensure members of the seven-year-old Global Compact uphold its standards.
Ban said firms who signed up to the voluntary initiative must present their records on human rights, labour practices, corruption and the environment for scrutiny each year.
“We are going to strengthen this accountability and transparency,” he told a news conference in Geneva, where 1,100 business and government leaders were meeting to review the Global Compact's effectiveness.
About 3,000 companies from 116 countries are members of the Global Compact, created in 2000 as a counterweight to discontent over the effects of globalisation. It requires firms to follow 10 principles, including pledges to abolish child labour and to work against corruption, extortion and bribery.
Human rights and environmental activists say the initiative has brought little change in company practices because of the United Nations' failure to monitor adherence to the principles, some of which are vague.
Principle 7, for instance, simply asks signatories to “support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges”.
Executives meeting in Geneva noted the Global Compact had revoked the membership of hundreds of companies that failed to report on their corporate governance performance as required.
“The good news is that the number of signatories is increasing (and) the quality is also increasing, because of the delistings,” Anglo American chairman Mark Moody-Stuart told Reuters on the sidelines of the summit.
Jose Sergio Gabrielli, chief executive of Brazil's state-run petroleum company Petrobras, said he supported a shift toward closer monitoring of companies' commitments under the initiative to ensure its legitimacy.
UN CHIEF: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged action on climate change and other shared international concerns in an address to the Global Compact Leaders Summit, a gathering in Geneva of business leaders, government ministers, and heads of civil society groups committed to UN.
“This summit is an important opportunity to take our partnership forward in learning as well as action,” Ban told those assembled from over 90 countries, including Pakistan. The text of his speech was also released at UN Headquarters in New York.“Over these two days, we must make an honest appraisal of what the Global Compact has achieved, renew our commitments, and chart a courageous course for the next three years.”
The Secretary-General stressed the importance of joint actions to address climate change and announced the planned launch of a Business Leadership Platform on “Caring for Climate” a joint project with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
Mr. Ban recalled that since the Global Compact was launched in 2000 with 47 companies, it had grown to “what is today the world's largest corporate citizenship initiative, counting 4,000 stakeholders in 116 countries.”
The Global Compact “has lived up to its promise” bringing business together with other stakeholders, and infusing markets and economies with universal values, he said.—Agencies
