DAVOS. - 29 January 2008 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged business leaders worldwide to embrace global cooperation and partnership on a scale never before seen and to eschew short-term thinking and seek long-term solutions to climate change and other pressing global challenges.

The Secretary-General's call came during a special session on the United Nations Global Compact at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos/Switzerland.

Calling 2009 the year of multiple crises, the Secretary-General stressed that, amid worries over a global recession, climate change threatens all our goals for development and social progress, but that it also presents us with a gilt-edged opportunity to invest in sustainable technologies and spur long-term growth. I encourage you to help create a future based on a low-carbon economy, he said, and renewed previous appeals to business to join the movement for a comprehensive and meaningful agreement on climate change, to be negotiated later this year in Copenhagen.

Reflecting on progress made by the UN Global Compact in past years, the Secretary-General called for a new phase of the initiative, marked by a renewed commitment to the core principles of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption. He also urged companies to embrace accountability and disclose progress. By doing so, you will not only be doing what is right, the Secretary-General said. You will also be helping to restore trust, confidence and credibility into the markets.

Full text of the Secretary-General's speech.

United Nations Global Compact

United Nations Global Compact

As the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative, the United Nations Global Compact is a call to companies everywhere to align their operations and strategies with Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Our ambition is to accelerate and scale the global collective impact of business by upholding the Ten Principles and delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through accountable companies and ecosystems that enable change. With the UN Global Compact, committed companies achieve sustainable value by delivering measurable impact to the world’s most pressing challenges. 

More from United Nations Global Compact