UN Global Compact Communication on Engagement 2022-2024

UN Global Compact Communication on Engagement MARCH 2022 – FEBRUARY 2024 The World Economic Forum reaffirms its support for the UN Global Compact’s Ten Principles announced by the late United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 1999 in Davos-Klosters. This communication on engagement notes the efforts the Forum is taking to support the compact and its principles. As the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation, the Forum’s mission is to provide a global platform where business, government, civil society and other stakeholders work together to drive leadership on such issues as human rights, the labour market, the environment and anti-corruption, among others. The Forum’s responsibility also extends to leading by example on these topics within its internal practices. The Forum has substantially strengthened partnerships with its stakeholders in the last few years, reflecting the growing need for a neutral, solution-oriented platform for cooperation amid global turbulence. The approach is to support holistic decision- making and strategic collaboration that helps improve the lives and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Throughout these efforts, the main focus has been on assisting leaders to shape a more equitable economic landscape. The Forum evaluates performance on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) measures as part of a continuous, transparent process to improve and manage impact. The Forum’s Measuring Stakeholder Metrics: Disclosures report, now in its third edition, quantifies and qualifies progress on four pillars: governance, people, planet and prosperity. Underscoring the growing importance of such reporting, the Forum has increased the depth of existing measures. The report is a significant starting point for expanding the Forum’s annual reporting beyond financial measures and serves as a vital tool for the leadership and all those who engage with the organization. Governance The Forum is committed to improving the state of the world. This ethos is central to all its activities, with an emphasis on multistakeholder collaboration and public-private cooperation. It maintains and integrates a robust process to continuously identify and assess risks to governance, from internal auditing and personnel training – rates of in-house Code of Conduct training increased to 90% during 2022-2023 – to providing public value on this topic, including the production of its flagship Global Risks Report and its Partnering Against Corruption Initiative. People The Forum continues to prepare its workforce for the future of work. It has developed a robust catalogue of learning and development opportunities to increase in-house skills and capabilities and to align with the changing world of work. It has also increased its learning budget by 45% over the past year to CHF 1.4 million ($1.5 million) to reinforce and expand offers established in the previous year, and to open additional programmes and more spaces to learners. In the past year, the Forum started a reporting process on learning and development opportunities. It significantly increased its hiring and upheld its Early Careers Programme aimed at young professionals, with 45 participants hired in the year and a large portion of previous cohorts hired into permanent roles: 33% from the first cohort and 54% from the second cohort of the programme. Progress has also been made in enhancing the diversity of the workforce, with the number of nationalities represented rising to 95. There is also greater gender balance at most levels of the organization. With regards to public value creation under this pillar, the Forum mobilized its platform in a wide range of areas, from the latest Future of Jobs Report to continued progress on the Reskilling Revolution. The Forum’s Partnering for Racial Justice in Business Initiative, currently supported by 55 companies, aims to enhance C-suite diversity and equity. It also released its annual Global Gender Gap Report, measuring the advancement of gender parity across the globe. In collaboration with the Valuable 500 Initiative, the Forum accelerates the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce. Planet The Forum pursued efforts to reduce carbon emissions in line with its commitment to achieve net zero by 2030. In comparison to the baseline of fiscal year 2019-2020, emissions decreased by 37.7%. However, as in-person events returned following the COVID-19 pandemic, CO² emissions increased by 48.8% year-on-year to reach 60,711 tonnes as of June 2023. Scope 3 emissions, which include flights and travel of Forum constituents and stakeholders, accounted for 98.6% of these emissions. The Forum continued to purchase carbon removal credits according to its emissions and maintained its adherence to the UN Global Compact. Additionally, the Forum invested in building a new energy plant in Davos, Switzerland, to provide green energy and reduce CO² emissions in the future.