Adam Gordon, Engagement Director, Global Compact Network USA

by Trish Kenlon

The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is the Secretary-General’s corporate sustainability initiative. The UNGC was founded 20 years ago by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan in response to the emerging trend of globalization with the idea that companies shouldn’t wait for countries to make laws in order to operate according to universal principles. It is the largest corporate sustainability and responsibility initiative in the world with over 12,000 companies in more than 160 countries committed to the compact.

By joining the UNGC, companies are committing to incorporating the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact into their strategies, policies and procedures. The Ten Principles are aligned with UN declarations and based on fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.

In 2015, all 193 Member States of the UN developed and adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals and underlying targets and indicators with the collective aspiration of what a better world could be. When companies join the UNGC, they are also affirming that they share the ambition of achieving the SDGs. They are committing to identifying which SDGs are material to their business, and supporting progress against those goals whenever possible.

While the Ten Principles and SDGs are universal and applicable to organizations around the world, the way in which companies implement these commitments can be highly contextual and depend heavily on what country a company is based in. In response to this challenge, the UNGC has developed local network chapters around the world in order to help businesses engage more effectively with the UNGC and to shape the narrative around corporate sustainability and responsibility in local markets.

The Global Compact Network USA (Network USA) is the network chapter of the UNGC in the United States. Network USA is a non-profit organization that was launched in 2007 and supports over 660 U.S.-based member entities such as BlackRock, Kraft Heinz, and Intel, among hundreds of others, in:

Operating in alignment with the Ten Principles of the Global Compact
Engaging with and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals
Leveraging their association with the Global Compact and United Nations and its global resource network
Facilitating and creating opportunities for multi-sector and multi-stakeholder collaboration

Adam Gordon leads Network USA and was kind enough to talk with me about his work there.

Tell us more about Network USA and what do you actually do all day

My work at Network USA generally falls into three buckets: Engagement, programming, and ambassadorship. On the engagement side, I represent the Compact and its work to the US market as a whole and serve as a point of contact for our member companies to help them make commitments and navigate the tools and opportunities available to them. I also lead our US programming which includes hosting events, curating resources, running our locally executed programs such as the Young SDG Innovators Program, and SDG Ambition Program, and supporting US member involvement in our global programs such as the CFO Task Force for the SDGs. In my role as an ambassador, I keep the Compact team informed on the progress of our US members, help the global team understand how best to recognize and support the accomplishments of US members, and help our US members to navigate their relationship with the UN.

I’m particularly excited about the Young SDG Innovators Program. It’s an incredible professional development opportunity for high potential young professionals under 35. Corporate teams of 3 people are provided with 10 months of sustainability, SDG, and innovation mentorship to help them develop an internal, proprietary solution for their company. It’s like an executive masters program in sustainability and responsibility but it’s free to member companies and highly focused on developing actionable, sustainable solutions tailored to an organization. The program will be accepting applications now through November 16, 2020.

I’m also working towards our January 2021 launch of the SDG Ambition Program which is a six-month accelerator for more senior employees of our member companies. 3M, Accenture, and other sponsors help participants develop a deeper understanding of how to operationalize the SDGs, set meaningful goals, raise their ambitions, and step up. The program will be accepting applications now through November 16th, 2020.

What are some of the key skills for success in this role?

You’ve got to be conversant in all of the relevant corporate sustainability issues. I’m certainly not an expert in every area, but you need to know enough to be able to navigate the various opportunities and communicate them effectively. You need to understand things like the macro issues, water industry basics, the investor perspective, trends and gaps in the market, international frameworks, and how companies interact with that ecosystem.

It’s also important to be a translator. The UN has its own language for talking about global issues which is very different from how corporations discuss them, and that’s different still from how nonprofits and the general public engage. You need to be able to translate between the stakeholders in order to move things forward.

Entrepreneurial skills are very valuable as well. As I’ve worked to help launch the network, I’ve had to identify the right partners, collaborate with them effectively, and balance quite different tasks such as recruiting companies, building a website, supporting members in their ambitions, and developing our budget. It’s a lot of gear switching and performing very disparate activities at the highest possible level.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Even after a physically or emotionally exhausting day, I go home feeling that I have done something good. I love having had a hand in facilitating these meaningful commitments from large companies that can make an impact at scale.

I also love that my job is to just be a complete and total help to our member companies. I’m not selling anything or pitching opportunities that aren’t in their best interests. I’m totally focused on genuinely helping them to realize their sustainability ambitions and have as big an impact as they can.

What is the hardest part of your job?

The UN works on a member state basis at the country level and the US is fundamentally very different from the rest of the world. For example, if you want to engage with England, you go to London. If you want to engage with Denmark, you go to Copenhagen. But you can’t just go to New York and engage with the US. Companies are distributed from New York to Hawaii and in many ways the US operates as if it were several different countries. It requires so much more work to engage with companies around the country and ensure we connect with and host events for every major market. It’s something we struggle with programmatically.

What is your proudest professional achievement?

I’m deeply proud of the work I’m doing in this job and what the Network USA has become over the past few years. The opportunity to really support US companies in this global sustainable development mission is incredibly validating. It is a career defining role and I’m honored and humbled to have it.

What are the game changers in your world?

There are really two big potential game changers for us. The first is more widespread adoption of the SDGs in the US market. It can be challenging to help some domestic companies to understand the global role they play even if they focus on serving the US market exclusively. The big issues we’re facing are fundamentally global and they become easier to address once everyone fully understands how even their local actions impact the global supply chain and markets.

The second game changer would be increased engagement with Chief Financial Officers in corporate sustainability initiatives. Once a CFO is truly on board and behind a company’s programs, the organization instantly becomes far more effective at financing and implementing impactful work. That’s why the work we’re doing with the CFO Task Force for the SDGs is so critical. If we can help more CFOs understand the role that they can play in implementing the SDGs, we’ll start to see quicker and more transformative progress.

What was your path to this role?

I started out in the local food world using my passion, drive, and ability to connect disparate groups to find opportunities to move things forward. I later earned my degree in sustainability management from Columbia where my fellowship with the EDF Climate Corps at Colgate Palmolive helped me to transition to corporate and supply chain work. After school I went to work at CDP where I concentrated on supply chain initiatives and that ultimately connected me with the UNGC.

The constants throughout my career have been focusing on my passions, investing in developing expertise, helping others to achieve their goals and ambitions, connecting people, taking an entrepreneurial approach to things, and translating complex concepts.

What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?

I couldn’t have prepared for this role; it simply didn’t exist before. My advice would be to focus on developing your talents as robustly and diversely as possible. You need to be a sponge for information and build universally valuable skills.

Develop your entrepreneurial and connector skills in particular. In order to navigate complex systems, you need a strong network and the ability to understand the nuances of organizational relationships. A big part of developing that network is supporting and caring about your peers and being generous with your expertise and time. It’s not about always working towards a specific opportunity; it’s about working tirelessly towards the right thing in the moment and making sure that you’re proud of everything you do, as you’ll never know what will lead to that next opportunity.

What are your favorite resources?

We have some incredible resources available through Network USA and the UNGC.

The Network USA Tools page highlights some of the very best of our global tools which include:

The SDG Action Manager, a tool that was developed in partnership with B Lab, GRI and others that walks you through the process of conducting your own materiality assessment for the SDGs, identifies gaps in your performance, offers suggestions for improvement, and allows you to track your progress internally.
The Water Stewardship Toolbox, which provides businesses with access to the latest tools, guidance, case studies, and datasets related to water.
The Science-Based Targets Initiative Tool, which is an integrated climate target-setting tool for companies looking to align with United Nations 1.5C emission reduction pathway.
The Women’s Empowerment Principles Gender Gap Analysis Tool which is a business-driven tool designed to help companies from around the world assess gender equality performance across the workforce, marketplace, and community.
The Decent Work Toolkit for Sustainable Procurement which enables companies, procurement professionals and suppliers to develop a common understanding on how to advance decent work through purchasing decisions and scaling up efforts to improve lives around the globe.

If you really want to get into the weeds of the SDGs, the Network USA website has a Selected Publications page that includes our most frequently recommended reads. There’s some very rich content there including:

The UN offers a website with free educational courses called the SDG Academy that have educated more than half a million people on the SDGs. While many of the sessions are limited to employees of participating companies, there are a number of fantastic sessions that are open to the public.

The UNGC’s website offers a great overview of our global tools for advancing the SDGs which includes:

The SDG Compass, a detailed written guide on how to align business strategy to the SDGs
An inventory of business indicators for tracking progress, mapped to CDP, GRI and other reporting frameworks
An inventory of business tools which allows you to search for tools specific to any SDG you might wish to work on
And, if you’re looking to see everything we’ve published, our global library of enhanced resources is an exhaustive overview of all of our material

Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?

I am continually inspired by the sustainability heroes at our member companies. At every company, there are heroes transforming their companies to be more sustainable, make meaningful corporate commitments, mitigating emissions, reducing waste, creating more responsible stewardship of water resources, developing inclusive and responsible human resources policies and supply chains, and so much more. They work within sometimes large bureaucracies across departments to implement the policies and initiatives that will collectively create a more sustainable and just economy. Every company must prepare to play their part in a sustainable future and it cannot happen without the leadership of their employees.