Start your day by connecting with fellow sustainability leaders over an informal breakfast. This networking breakfast creates space for honest conversation, fresh perspectives, new business ideas and partnerships.

Join a short, facilitated opportunity to connect with peers who understand your regional realities. Through guided discussion and shared perspectives, participants can exchange experiences, identify common challenges, hear about value-generating ideas and strengthen peer connections. Each circle is 20 minutes long.

Today’s business leaders are facing constant pressure from climate challenges to market uncertainty to conflicting expectations from employees, customers and investors. In this environment, trust matters more than ever, and it’s built through clear, honest and purpose-driven leadership that also supports long-term business resilience.

This session explores how leaders make tough decisions even when they don’t have all the answers, communicate openly, and maintain trust with stakeholders and communities. Participants will gain actionable strategies for strengthening business resilience and transformational governance, focusing on leadership rooted in credibility, integrity and ethics.

The UN Secretary-General has emphasized the importance of maintaining the 1.5°C threshold by the end of the century, requiring rapid emission reductions and a shift to clean energy. This session will explore the private sector's role in achieving these goals through target setting and solution implementation focused on climate and nature. Participants will learn about strategies to engage value chains and financial actors to accelerate action. This session is for business leaders addressing climate and nature-related issues, aiming to set science-based targets, and for leaders with target-setting experience seeking to enhance corporate action and engage stakeholders

Businesses face increasing expectations from legislators, investors, consumers, employees and communities to identify, assess and address human rights risks across their value chains. Financial priorities can sometimes overshadow the most severe impacts on people, and internal stakeholders may not always agree on prioritizing business human rights impacts. This session will explore how prioritizing "people-impact" and future-proofing businesses can be mutually beneficial, offering strategies for integrating human rights priorities at the leadership level, where decisions on capital allocation, business modelling and governance are made. This session is for senior leaders in strategy, finance, legal, operations, supply chain, sustainability and cross-functional management and senior leaders overseeing enterprise risk management, partnerships, growth and development.

Artificial intelligence is transforming business operations. This session examines whether AI advances responsible business practices or creates new risks beyond current governance. Through real-world examples, it explores AI's role in monitoring human rights, detecting fraud and integrating into compliance processes. The session addresses AI's potential to enhance visibility and efficiency, as well as the risk of introducing bias and ethical challenges. Participants will gain insights into ethical AI use in business and learn how to evaluate AI systems against human rights standards and governance frameworks. This session is for compliance, sustainability and human rights teams integrating emerging technologies, as well as digital, AI, innovation, data and technology governance teams managing AI systems alongside senior business leaders involved in AI governance, ethics, enterprise risk management, and legal.

As circular economy commitments grow, businesses face challenges in bridging the gap between ambition and execution, including navigating regional policies and regulations. Moving beyond the loop requires translating circular principles into competitive advantage through viable business models, clear strategies, supply chain resilience and measurable outcomes. This session will bring together business leaders and experts to showcase proven circularity models adopted by UN Global Compact business participants across Europe and the Middle East. Participants will gain insights to transform circular ambition into tangible business value and scalable impact. This session is for senior sustainability, strategy and operations leaders responsible for designing and implementing circular economy initiatives, including those leading business model innovation, supply chain transformation and ESG integration.

The sustainability landscape in the Asia-Pacific region is rapidly evolving. Leaders are facing pressures from tighter ESG disclosures, net-zero commitments, nature-related risks and supply chain disruptions, along with rising expectations to embed sustainability in business strategies. The UN Global Compact Asia-Pacific Hub will bring together senior sustainability professionals to discuss how they integrate ESG issues across business functions and demonstrate the business case for SDG integration. Participants will gain insights from regional leaders on achieving ROI through cross-functional commitments and measurable outcomes. This session is for leaders in operations, strategy, supply chains, and legal teams supporting sustainability and transition planning.

Enjoy a lunch break with fellow Summit participants—an easy moment to connect, recharge and exchange perspectives before the sessions ahead. Lunch will be plant-forward and served without single-use plastics.

Join a short, facilitated opportunity to connect with peers who understand your regional realities. Through guided discussion and shared perspectives, participants can exchange experiences, identify common challenges and strengthen peer connections. Each circle is 20 minutes long.

As AI adoption, climate transition, and demographic shifts reshape work, businesses face increasing workplace exclusion risks that current non-discrimination frameworks may not address. This interactive workshop examines your organization's approach to prospective future scenarios. Through expert insights and peer exchange, participants will explore where existing commitments may fall short and identify future-ready practices. Attendees will gain a clearer understanding of emerging inequity risks and suggested practices for building discrimination-free businesses. This session is for C-suite and director-level professionals, and senior managers.

Integrity is increasingly a source of competitive advantage. Companies with strong anti-corruption, ethics and compliance programmes are better positioned to build trust, strengthen resilience, access markets and create long-term value. This interactive workshop will use the newly launched UN Global Compact and UNODC publication, An Anti-Corruption, Ethics and Compliance Programme for Business: A Practical Guide, to explore effective compliance in today’s risk environment. Participants will gain practical insights into how integrity can drive stronger governance, better business performance and more sustainable growth across operations, value chains and external engagement. This session is for compliance, ethics, sustainability, and strategy teams integrating integrity into business decision-making and market strategy and for senior leaders, business development, procurement, and operations teams seeking to strengthen trust, partnerships, and long-term market positioning.

As the European Union advances sustainability regulations, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and related due diligence frameworks, their impact is extending beyond Europe to suppliers worldwide. Latin America and the Caribbean, with strong trade ties to the EU, are particularly exposed to these evolving standards. This session will explore how EU regulations are influencing transatlantic supply chains, examining business perspectives and policy insights to understand how companies are adapting and the implications for trade and sustainable practices. This session is for senior sustainability, compliance, procurement, and supply chain leaders in multinational companies operating in or sourcing from Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly those responsible for ESG reporting, regulatory compliance and supplier engagement.

Businesses in emerging regions face challenges mobilizing finance for sustainable development, despite opportunities in Africa and other areas. Financing gaps, capacity issues and perceived investment risks hinder progress. This session will explore how partnerships among business, finance and public institutions can unlock capital and accelerate development. It will present models, finance approaches and institutional enablers driving impact across regions. Participants will gain insights into structuring partnerships, mobilizing investment and identifying opportunities. This session is for private sector leaders, financial institutions, institutional investors, government representatives, national development banks, regulators, and policymakers

This session brings together industry leaders to examine the structural barriers slowing the clean energy transition. While technology costs have fallen and ambition has grown, gaps in policy design, permitting and financing continue to delay deployment at scale. The session will explore how regulatory uncertainty, fragmented incentives and outdated market frameworks hinder investment, particularly in emerging and capital-intensive sectors. The discussion will also highlight innovative financing mechanisms, public–private partnerships and policy reforms that can unlock capital and accelerate project timelines. By focusing on practical solutions and cross-sector collaboration, this session aims to identify actionable strategies to align policy and finance with the urgency of the energy transition and drive more equitable, resilient outcomes. This session is for companies across the clean energy value chain, from developers to offtakers and grid operators.

Meeting sustainability commitments has never been harder. Rising expectations, heightened scrutiny and shifting operating conditions are putting compounding pressures to drive sustainability holistically , and widening the gap between ambition and delivery.

This session turns from strategy to execution, focusing on how companies translate commitments into measurable progress. Speakers will share how leading teams sequence priorities, embed sustainability into day-to-day decision making and sustain momentum through leadership transitions, budget cycles and external headwinds. Participants will leave with tactics to strengthen execution, accountability and transparency across operations and value chains.

Trust is the operating system of resilient business. Integrity, accountability and respect for the Ten Principles—human rights, labour rights, environment and anti-corruption—are no longer reputational concerns alone, they are preconditions for responsible business conduct that provides the licence to operate, attract long-term capital and sustain performance over time.

This session brings private and public sector leaders together to examine how the Ten Principles can be hardwired into strategy, culture and governance. Participants will leave with concrete approaches to translate stated values into consistent decisions, reinforce ethical leadership at every level and advance the inclusive, sustainable outcomes called for by the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.

Wrap up day one by coming together to relax, reconnect and recharge. This evening social is your chance to continue great conversations, meet new faces and enjoy a fun, informal atmosphere, setting the tone for an energizing second day of the conference. Yummy bites, refreshments and entertainment included.