The XXI Conference of the parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will meet in Paris from 30th  November to 11th December 2015. 

The COP is the highest decision-making body of the UNFCCC and all the countries that have subscribed to the Convention are represented in it. The first COP was held in Berlin in 1995 and has since met annually unless otherwise defined by the Parties. Important occasions leading up to Paris in 2015 were: COP3 where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted; COP 11 during which the Action Plan of Montreal was produced; COP15 in Copenhagen, where the signing of the agreement for the approval of the Kyoto Protocol was postponed to 2015; and lastly, COP17 in Durban, where the Green Climate Fund was created.

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The Report “MAKING THE CASE. Business, biodiversity and ecosystem services as a tool for change” was presented on 3^rd November, at the IV edition of the States General of the Green Economy (Ecomondo, Rimini Fiera). This document was produced by the Global Compact Network Italy Foundation in collaboration with the Institute of Management at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa and with the support of Terna SpA. Previously, the publication had been launched at an international level at the II EU B@B Platform Annual Conference held in Brussels on 27^th October.

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October 2015 – For the fifth consecutive year Terna has been confirmed in the STOXX Global ESG Leaders Indices, which are based on an analysis of a basket of companies, very complete in terms of both geography and sector, and which is prepared by Sustainalytics, one of the leading rating agencies in the world in the field of sustainability.

Terna sits comfortably among leader companies, as it is included in all the specialised leadership indices: environmental, social and governance. This is a recognition that assumes even more significance if we consider that to qualify in the general index being present in just one of these 3 segments would be sufficient.

There are only 7 utility companies, at the global level, present in all three indices, and there are only 14 Italian companies, including Terna, in the STOXX Global ESG Leaders.

The indices, drawn up by the company STOXX Limited, starting from the 1,800 stocks present in the international basket STOXX Global 1800 Index, have selected the best 348 companies for results in terms of sustainability.

The STOXX ESG Leaders indices are characterised by transparency in the selection criteria – based on indicators suggested by the EFFAS (European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies) and by the DVFA (Society of Investment Professionals in Germany) – and in the scores attributed by the rating agency Sustainalytics to the companies examined.

Besides the presence in the STOXX ESG, Terna is in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (electric industry leader 2015) and in the international indices FTSE4Good (Global and Europe), Axia (Ethical and CSR), ECPI (Ethical Global, Euro, EMU), MSCI (Global and Europe Sustainability), ASPI Eurozone, and Ethibel (Excellence, Sustainability Europe) as well as in the Italian indices FTSE ECPI Italia SRI Benchmark and Italia SRI Leaders.

Companies now have a new tool to help them navigate and contribute to a new set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations on 25 September.

The SDG Compass, developed jointly by Global Reporting Initiative - GRI, the UN Global Compact and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and launched in occasion of the UN Private Sector Forum which was held in New York on September 26th, guides companies in taking a strategic approach to the SDGs and enhancing their contribution to sustainable development through core business activities.

The SDGs, which will shape the global development agenda from now until 2030, explicitly call on business to use creativity and innovation to address sustainable development challenges, such as poverty, gender equality, clean water, clean energy and climate change. The SDG Compass is a guide that companies can use to align their strategies with the relevant SDGs, and measure and manage their impacts.

Though all 193 Member States of the United Nations reached agreement on the SDGs, their success relies heavily on action and collaboration by all actors. The SDG Compass acknowledges this and incorporates feedback from companies, government agencies, academic institutions and civil society organizations, from around the world.

For further information about the SDG Compass, click here

The seventh consecutive renewal for Terna, the company chaired by Catia Bastioli and led by Matteo Del Fante, in the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index also comes with its recognition as an industry leader in the Electric Utilities sector. This is the result from the annual review conducted by the Swiss sustainability rating agency RobecoSAM, which today confirmed the Company’s continued inclusion in the World and Europe indexes. This represents a major achievement for Terna: there are only 8 Electric Utilities in the World index and just 2 in the Europe index.

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Registration for the Salone della CSR e dell’Innovazione Sociale (CSR and Social Innovation Exhibition) is now open. The event will take place on October 6th and 7th in Milan, in the luxurious Grafton buidling located within Bocconi University, in Via Roentgen. The 2015 Edition, like its predecessers, is sponsored by Bocconi University, Unioncamere, the CSR Manager Network, the Alliance of Italian Cooperatives, the Solidalitas Foundation, and Koinètica.

The CSR – IS Exhibition will be an opportunity to promote how passion and inspiration are at the foundation of the choices made by responsible organizations. Passion is the initiative which leads the company to: choose sustainability; help the youth to travel towards training programs that focus on the values of Corporate Social Responsibility; and,  push the consumer to reward the most responsible organizations.

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Global Compact Local Networks in Europe, their participants and stakeholders will come together in Berlin, on October 13th-14th 2015, to discuss the future of corporate sustainability and the UN Global Compact in Europe. The meeting is convened in the context of several historic events in 2015: the UN Global Compact's 15th anniversary, the anticipated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate negotiations in Paris.

The conference will foster learning and dialogue between companies and with stakeholders from government, civil society, associations and other organizations. The event will feature various thematic and practical sessions, as well as high-level panel discussions.

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The Report “IMPACT: Transforming Business, Changing the World - The United Nations Global Compact” has been recently published by the Global Compact Office of New York. The document explains how the UN Global Compact calls on businesses to take action, and its place in the history of the modern corporate sustainability movement.

The Report then explores the role of the Global Compact in driving change by setting out 16 findings across three areas: 1. corporate practices; 2. the corporate operating environment; and 3. dominant worldviews.

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The “United Nations Private Sector Forum” will be held in New York on September 26th from 11.00 a.m. and hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The Forum will be focused on the role of the private sector in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Convened in the context of the UN summit for the adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the interactive Forum is designed to increase understanding of efforts underway by the private sector and civil society, and provide a platform for the private sector to announce long-term goals and partnerships that will make an important contribution towards achieving sustainable development for all. 

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After intensive intergovernmental negotiations that brought in the viewpoints of civil society and business, UN Member States agreed to the full text of a document that ushers in a 15-year, 17-point plan for sustainable development.

“This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity”, the declaration states. “It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development”.

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Enel has been named in the top five of Fortune magazine’s Change the World list, a new ranking that shines a spotlight on businesses that make addressing social challenges part of their business strategy. The Group, which is both the only utility and only Italian company to be included in the list was ranked fifth of 50 companies selected by the magazine, and was hailed by Fortune for “charging the barricades when it comes to clean power”.

The magazine praised Enel for leading a renewable energy revolution, something they usually expect “to be led by tiny upstarts, not established giants”, and highlighted the fact that in 2014 the Group generated 38% of its output from renewable sources, with that figure set to rise to 48% within the next four years. Fortune also singled out Enel CEO Francesco Starace’s commitment to make the Group carbon neutral by 2050.

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The transition to a new corporate culture where finance and corporate social responsibility will no longer speak different languages. This is the added value of the directive that will obligate about six thousand European companies with over 500 employees to communicate information of a social and environmental character as well as economic information, based on what has emerged in the course of the round-table discussion about Directive 2014/95/UE which took place on 5th June during the presentation of Acea’s Sustainability Report 2014.

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The United Nations Global Compact’s (UNGC) website (www.unglobalcompact.org) was recently revamped in order to reach a wider audience by updating the writing style and heightening the visual appeal. The portal is now characterized by a new approach in terms of content organization and new features that enable greater findability of content. In the coming months, the Global Compact will explore new ways to better feature the content and material provided by Local Networks.

The new site was officially launched on 22nd June and presented at the Local Networks’ Annual Forum, which was held in New York on 24th and 25th June. The UNGC has stated that the redesign only affects the public view of the website, not that of the portal dashboard which includes the Knowledge Sharing System - KSS used by Local Networks and participants to share material and information of common interest with the Global Compact offices.

The Global Compact Network Italy Foundation’s (GCNI Foundation) "Environment" Working Group is engaged in the production of a report on the results of in-depth corporate case studies implemented within the Group on "Ecosystem services in business management". This report offers the Working Group’s first definitive output and aims to provide a learning opportunity to all stakeholders interested (firms, readers, case writes, auditors) along with the production of new knowledge about the practical implementation of the management and protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) by companies as well as the results which emerge. There are two main phases: the identification of relevant business practices with respect to the key report "Business - Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services"; and the description of such practices with particular attention to the following aspects: assessment; business management; financial tools. The GCNI Foundation is coordinating the production of the report with the scientific support of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa. The document will be presented at the Fourth Edition of the States General of the Green Economy to be held on 3rd and 4th November 2015, at the Rimini Fiera in the presence of a delegation of representatives of the European Commission.

For further information, write to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Global Compact Network Italy Foundation’s second Activities Report is now available on-line covering the period 1st January 2014 till 31st December 2014. The Report functions as an important information-giving and external communication tool on the Foundation’s aims, on how far the initiatives that make up its program activities have been implemented, and the results achieved in the reporting year. The Report also proposes a preliminary study on the United Nations Global Compact as a reference framework for any of the Foundation’s initiatives. The document contains an interactive index and is also available in English. For more information, write to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

On 23rd and 24th of June 2015, the “Global Compact +15: Business as a Force for Good” was held in New York City. The event, organised in over a dozen specialised meetings, culminated with a plenary session in the UN General Assembly Hall on 25th of June. The GA session brought together over 1,000 global leaders from business, Government and civil society to take stock of fifteen years of corporate sustainability, and to map out pathways for the future.

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On 25th of June 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Lise Kingo as Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact.  She will succeed Georg Kell, who retires later this year after over 25 years of service to the United Nations.
The Secretary-General expresses his gratitude for the outgoing Executive Director’s services to the Organization and his commitment in fostering cooperation between the private sector and the United Nations.  He is particularly appreciative of Mr. Kell’s exemplary leadership in the creation and management of the United Nations Global Compact since its launch in 2000.

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The meeting scheduled for the Global Compact Network Italy Foundation "Reporting" Working Group was held by video-conference between eni (Rome) and FEEM – Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (Milan). The meeting provided an opportunity to share the line of reasoning over the evidence raised through comparative analysis of corporate case studies on the topic of "materiality analysis" implemented by the Group during previous meetings.

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The Global Compact Network Italy Foundation Board of Directors met on April 20th 2015 to examine and accept Ergo Italia SpA’s (a company working in insurance and social security) membership application to the Foundation with "Participant" status.

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On 9th April the first meeting between the Global Compact Network Italy Foundation (GCNI Foundation) and the Antitrust Authority on the topic of Legality Rating was held in Rome. The presence of the Antitrust Authority, starting with an overview and analysis followed by an open debate on the issue, enabled a greater understanding of the application mechanisms of the regulation - as amended following the recent public consultation in which the Foundation took part.

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