The Communication on Progress (CoP) digital platform was paused on 15 June 2023. Our developers are resolving the technical challenges to ensure the stability of the platform. For this reason, we have decided to delay the 15 July deadline for CoP submission. When a new deadline is determined, we will announce it and allow significant time for participants to complete their 2023 CoP. The CoP submission deadline will not be before October of this year.
In the meantime, we encourage all participants to continue collecting data using the questionnaire template, which can be found on the CoP and Academy web pages. Additionally, please review these CoP Frequently Asked Questions.
We will provide an update regarding the functionality of the digital platform and new deadline soon.
If you have any questions, please reach out to cop-support@unglobalcompact.org and UN Global Compact Local Network.
Benefits of the enhanced Communication on Progress
- 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.
The enhanced CoP enables participating companies of the UN Global Compact to:
Learn more about the requirements, deadlines and how to best prepare for the new CoP by reading the five steps below.
Step 1: Understand your requirements
The enhanced Communication on Progress (CoP) consists of two elements:
- 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.
- A standardized CoP Questionnaire, which 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 (access the questionnaire template here.)
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.
Step 2: Know your deadlines
Companies should complete and submit their CoP during the universal submission period, which takes place from March through June annually (for 2023: 27 March - 15 July), 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 16 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.
Companies are not required to submit a CoP in the year they join the UN Global Compact. For more details on the CoP requirements, delisting and rejoining policy, access the CoP policy.
Step 3: Prepare your report
- ✓ Confirm your CEO’s continued support of the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact.
- ✓ Review the CoP Questionnaire to understand the questions asked and the data that will need to be collected.
- ✓ 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.
- ✓ 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).
- ✓ Check that you have access to the UN Global Compact dashboard here. Refer to the user's guide to learn how to request credentials.
Step 4: Complete and submit your CoP
Once you have…
- ✓ Answered all questions in the CoP questionnaire
- ✓ 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. The UN Global Compact will not score or rank of participating companies associated with the CoP questionnaire.
Please note that the UN Global Compact is committed to protecting the privacy of our Participants and website users and that our privacy policy and cookies policy apply to all our websites including our COP digital platform. Please also 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 analyze trends and/or included in public reports on the status of corporate sustainability. The UN Global Compact is not responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of the data submitted by its participating companies through the COP platform nor for the use of public COP data by third parties. The UN Global Compact is also not responsible, or liable to any third party, for any privacy violations that result from the Personal Information of a third party submitted to the UN Global Compact by participating companies through the CoP platform.