Evaluating Corporate Sustainability

What is it about?

The United Nations Global Compact offers corporations an opportunity to participate in the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative. However, the global policy program may not be in alignment with the complexity of the human and environmental systems. The complex adaptive systems theory is used to develop a framework for evaluating whether a policy on sustainability is in alignment with the complexity of sustainability.

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Why is it important?

The UNGC offers multinational corporations a seat at the table of the United Nations if the corporations agree to embed the Compact principles into their operations. Consequently, the corporations now influence the global policy on sustainability such as the recent COP 21 agreement. In order to evaluate whether multinational corporations have earned their place at the table to contribute to the dialogue on sustainability, the program logic of the Global Compact should be evaluated to determine whether the Compact is potentially effective as an instrument for corporations to operate sustainably. The assumption of this article is that a global policy on sustainability will only be effective if the program logic is in alignment with the complexity of sustainability. This article offers a framework to evaluate whether an organizational policy program is in alignment with the complexity of sustainability.

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