ABSTRACT
Dateline, Palo Alto, California, 29 April 2003. A group of 40 or more North American companies, academics and staff of the United Nations Global Compact-an innovative effort to encourage companies to live up to a set of foundational principles-gathered to discuss experience with the Global Compact to date, as well as the pro and cons of involvement. Hosted at Hewlett-Packard’s headquarters (other lead companies were Pfizer and Deloitte & Touche), the meeting brought together current North American participants (mostly US companies) in the Global Compact and potentially interested companies to discuss in a safe environment their experience. This chapter reports the learning derived from the meeting, which followed Chatham House rules in that specific attributions are omitted. It synthesises the benefits experienced by those companies already participating, the concerns raised by those not yet involved and by participants as they considered whether to become signatories or not and concludes with a section on what has been learned to date.
