The UN Global Compact, with support from partners, is offering a six-month accelerator to challenge and support participating companies in setting ambitious corporate targets and accelerating integration of the SDGs into core business management. The programme aims to unlock business value, build resilience, and enable long-term growth.

According to the SDG Ambition programme webpage, the world is not advancing on the SDGs at the pace and scale needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It highlights that “to shift the world towards a 1.5°C trajectory and achieve the SDGs by 2030,” urgent, scalable, and multi-stakeholder action needs to “dramatically accelerate progress.”

The SDG Ambition Accelerator brochure notes that as the 2030 Agenda deadline approaches, “companies are increasingly looked at to be part of the solution.” It highlights the opportunity for businesses to demonstrate leadership and develop post-COVID-19 strategies that integrate the SDGs and help build more inclusive and sustainable societies where no one is left behind.

In this context, the SDG Ambition programme, which was launched at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2020, seeks to deepen the integration of the global Goals and the UN Global Compact’s Ten Principles into companies’ business strategies, operations, and stakeholder engagement.

The UN Global Compact’s Ten Principles span the areas of human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. According to the Principles, businesses should:

• Support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights;
• Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses;
• Uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
• Uphold the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor;
• Uphold the effective abolition of child labor;
• Uphold the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation;
• Support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
• Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility;
• Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies; and
• Work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

The SDG Ambition Accelerator consists of three modules where companies will be challenged to imagine the future, sharpen the vision, and build the future.

Three information sessions have been scheduled for 8 September. Applications are accepted until 30 September 2022. The new Accelerator is set to kick off in October. [UN Global Compact’s SDG Ambition Accelerator]