More Than 1,000 Companies Delisted From Global Compact

The UN Global Compact has delisted 1,005 companies since 2008 for repeated failure to meet the UN Global Compact’s mandatory annual reporting requirement, also known as the Communication on Progress (COP) policy. As part of the announcement, the Global Compact Office also released a full listing of the 1,005 companies delisted as at 6 October.

Global Compact signatories are required to report annually on progress made in the implementation of the initiative’s ten principles covering human rights, workplace standards, the environment, and anti-corruption. Failure to submit a COP to the public Global Compact database within a year of joining results in a change of a company’s status. Consecutive failures to submit a COP leads to removal (delisting) of the company.

Despite the number of delistings, the Global Compact continues to grow at a rate of roughly 100 new participants per month, with the current total of active business and non-business participants standing at over 7,000 organizations in more than 135 countries.

The COP policy was introduced in 2005 to ensure transparency and public accountability of the business commitment, drive continuous performance improvement, safeguard the integrity of the Global Compact as a whole and contribute to the development of a repository of corporate practices.

The now more than 1,000 delisted companies include both small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and larger companies, and are also proportionally represented among industry sectors and countries in the Global Compact – indicating that the COP framework is equally relevant across business size, sector and geographic region.

Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, Georg Kell, said:

Over the years, the Global Compact’s framework has become increasingly robust, through the establishment of integrity measures, introduction of guidance materials, and the support of the many local networks that provide COP mentoring. By all indications, we expect corporate disclosure of policies and practices to become more common, as companies joining the Global Compact increasingly enter with a better understanding of the critical value of reporting on environmental, social and governance performance.

While delisted companies are removed entirely from the Global Compact’s public database, the initiative allows companies to return to active status. To officially rejoin the Global Compact companies must provide a new commitment from the chief executive officer addressed to the UN Secretary-General and submit a COP to the public database.◊