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COP

Important Note!

In light of the technical issues experienced, submitting the CoP is now voluntary for 2023 and no participants will be considered “Non-communicating” or “Delisted” for failure to submit a CoP this year. For those participants wishing to publicly submit a CoP in 2023, the reporting deadline is 31 December. .

We invite you to review these Frequently Asked Questions and reach out to cop-support@unglobalcompact.org or your Local Network for additional support.

The enhanced Communication on Progress

We are excited to announce the launch of a new Communication on Progress (CoP) platform effective in 2023. The enhanced Communication on Progress offers many benefits to business participants.

With the introduction of the enhanced CoP, we will transition from a narrative format to a standardized questionnaire supported by a digital platform. All business participants will be required to disclose their progress using the new platform beginning in 2023.

  • About the enhanced Communication on Progress

    The enhanced CoP enables participating companies of the UN Global Compact to:

    • Measure and demonstrate progress to stakeholders and the public on the Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals in a consistent and harmonized way.
    • Build credibility and brand value by showing their commitment to the Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals.
    • Receive insight, learn and continuously improve performance by identifying gaps, accessing guidance and setting sustainability goals.
    • Compare performance against peers with access to one of the largest sources of free, public and comparable corporate sustainability data.

    We are also introducing a universal submission period that runs from 1 March through 30 June each year. In 2023, the submission period will start on 27 March.

  • How the Communication on Progress works
    Step 1: Understand your requirements


    The enhanced Communication on Progress (CoP) consists of two elements: a CEO statement of continued support and a new standardized CoP questionnaire.

    The CEO statement of continued support publicly expresses your company’s ongoing commitment to the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact at the highest level. The statement is a standardized template that is signed electronically on the new CoP digital platform.

    The CoP questionnaire focuses on five disclosure areas (governance, human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption) and is designed to help participating companies monitor performance across the Ten Principles. There will be no scoring or ranking associated with the CoP questionnaire. Rather, the objective is to create transparency and enable progress.

    To fulfill the CoP requirement, your company must have electronically signed the CEO statement of continued support and answered all the questions in the CoP questionnaire via the new CoP digital platform by the end of the universal submission period. Check the CoP questionnaire template here and get more information on the CEO statement of ongoing support here.

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    SDGs
    Step 2: Know your deadlines


    Companies should complete and submit their CoP during the universal submission period, which takes place from 1 March through 30 June annually (for 2023: 27 March – 30 June), in order to maintain ‘active’ status in the UN Global Compact.

    If a company fails to complete and submit their CoP during the universal submission period, they will fall into ‘non-communicating’ status, and their name and status will be publicly displayed. This status can be reverted to ‘active’ by submitting the CoP any time between 1 July and 31 December, annually.

    If a ‘non-communicating’ company fails to submit their CoP by 31 December, they will be delisted from the UN Global Compact for ‘failure to communicate’ in January of the following calendar year. Delisted companies will be publicly displayed.

    With the new CoP, there will be no grace periods or extensions.

    For more details on the CoP requirements, delisting and rejoining policy, access the CoP policy.

    Step 3: Prepare your report


    1. Confirm your CEO’s continued support to the UN Global and the renewal of the company’s ongoing commitment to the initiative and its principles.
    2. Review the CoP questionnaire to understand the questions asked and the data that will be collected. You can access the CoP questionnaire template here.
    3. Use the CoP Guidebook here to get information on how to answer the questions, find calculations and explore a glossary of key terms to help you complete the CoP questionnaire.
    4. Begin your data collection process on time! You can use the spreadsheet here to support your data collection process with relevant team members and the CoP Data Compilation Checklist here (see p. 74).
    5. Check that you have access to the UN Global Compact dashboard here. Refer to the user’s guide to learn how to request credentials. The CoP digital platform will open on 1 March annually for companies to start completing their CoP requirements directly on the platform.

     

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    SDGs
    Step 4: Complete and submit your CoP


    Once you have…

    • ✓    Answered all questions in the CoP questionnaire
    • ✓    Electronically signed the CEO statement of continued support
    • ✓    Uploaded relevant supplemental documentation (e.g. policies, sustainability report, etc) that you would like to VOLUNTARILY add to complement your submission
    • ✓    Made a last review of the information provided

    … you are ready to submit your CoP through the digital platform.

    Step 5: Visualize your submitted CoP report


    Upon submission of the CoP, all companies will be able to view their completed CoP report on their participant profile on the UN Global Compact website, where it will be accessible by any stakeholder and the public as an html web page and downloadable as a PDF.

    Companies will also be able to visualize their CoP answers, track and understand performance and benchmark against peers through their data visualization dashboard on the CoP digital platform.

    Please note that all data, including supplemental documentation that was submitted by a participating company through the CoP digital platform, will be made publicly available on the UN Global Compact website. This data may be used by the UN Global Compact in aggregate form to present trends or included in reports about the status of corporate sustainability. The UN Global Compact does not have any responsibility on the accuracy of the data submitted by its participating companies nor on how this public data will be used by other stakeholders.

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Need Support?

Reach us at cop-support@unglobalcompact.org

or: nino@unglobalcompact.ge