UN Pushes Corporate Volunteering

A new program is expected to bring together a global coalition of private sector leaders to expand and encourage corporate volunteering with the goal of supporting the United Nations’ Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

IMPACT 2030, recently announced at the UN on International Volunteer Day, is a collaboration between the United Nations and the business sector in response to a resolution by the United Nations’ General Assembly to expand involvement of the private sector in support of corporate volunteerism.

Each IMPACT 2030 partner has committed to applying its employee volunteer actions towards one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals in the form of capacity building and civic engagement.

“IMPACT 2030 is the only business led effort designed to unite companies in their corporate volunteering efforts to address the United Nations’ Development Agenda,” Grady Lee, Executive Committee Chair for IMPACT 2030 and the co-founder of CorpsGiving said.

“We believe corporate volunteering — in partnership with the United Nations, peer companies, government, philanthropic organisations, academia and civil society — will be a powerful tool to accelerate the global achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and inspire the private sector to positive action.”

Richard Dictus, Executive Coordinator for United Nations Volunteers, said volunteerism and volunteers were the ultimate renewable resource for sustainable development.

"IMPACT 2030 is an excellent initiative that will enable corporate volunteering to engage the global sustainable development agenda, and for social corporate responsibility [sic] to be counted as a major contributor to this global endeavour,” he said.

“Sustainable Development Goals aim at leaving no one behind in the drive to create the world we want for this and future generations. It is an all hands on deck situation where the capacity of the private sector to implement, manage and upscale, coupled with state of the art technical knowledge in many domains through skills based corporate volunteering can be the decisive factor."

Founding partners include The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, IBM Corporation, SAP SE, UPS, Perkins Coie, and Waggener Edstrom Communications. Collaborating partners include Google, Cemex, Telefonica, SingTel, and Ball Corporation.

The scheme will formally launch in September 2015 at the United Nations with a CEO Summit of partner companies. IMPACT 2030 is seeking partnership from companies of all sizes to join the initiative and align their volunteer efforts.