In the past decade, international and non-governmental organizations have developed frameworks to facilitate improved business and governmental practices that will broadly benefit humanity. These include the United Nations Global Compact and Principles for Responsible Investment; the Rainforest Alliance’s certifications in forestry, agriculture, tourism and its carbon auditing services; and the Environment and Safeguards Compliance Policy of the Inter-American Development Bank.

Here we’re writing about the first two and their relation to PPAF and its role in building public-private partnerships for sustainable development.

The UN Global Compact encourages businesses to align their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.  Companies may apply to be accepted to the Global Compact, which holds meetings, produces documents and otherwise encourages companies to comply.

Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI): The six principles commit participating investment groups to focus on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues in (1) their investment analysis and decision-making, (2) ownership policies and practices, (3) requirements for disclosure by companies in which they invest (4) promotion of acceptance and implementation of the Principles within the investment industry, (5) collaboration with others and (6) reporting.

While aimed at businesses, non-governmental organizations also may join, and the Public-Private Alliance Foundation is a member of the UN Global Compact.  PPAF’s policy position is as follows:

“In dealing with partner organizations, individuals and stakeholders, PPAF will bring to their attention the UN Global Compact and its ten principles. It will ask its partners to pledge to follow the Global Compact principles in the context of their relations with PPAF and others. PPAF will encourage them to join the Global Compact where appropriate. PPAF will make available a statement on these matters and will encourage partners to sign it. While such signature may be non-binding, the policy is intended to promote greater awareness of and implementation of actions related to fair labor practice, human rights, the environment and anti-corruption.

PPAF’s recent meetings on ethanol and bioenergy, held in cooperation with ResearchPAYS, Inc., addressed environmental, social and corporate governance issues in the context of investment possibilities for these important topics.  Held on May 7 and June 17 at the United Nations, the meetings brought together stakeholders from business, government, academic, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations system.  PPAF distributed materials on the Global Compact as well as on the work of the UN Division for Sustainable Development and the UN Office for Partnerships.  Reports, press releases, photos and YouTube excerpts are available on the PPAF website.

In another blog post we’ll talk about how the Rainforest Alliance certifications and the IDB compliance policies apply to PPAF’s work.