Twelve South African companies had voluntarily committed to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), in the 2013 financial year to date, the National Business Initiative (NBI) said in a statement on Wednesday.

The twelve signatories were Transnet, Allegiance Air, Oceana Group, Millennium Management, South African Express, South African Airways, Initio Earth Sciences, MTN Group, Investec Group, Netcare, the South African Post Office and Inala Technologies.

The UNGC was a strategic policy initiative for businesses committed to aligning their strategies and operations with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environmental protection and anticorruption.

The UNGC, with the NBI as its national partner, offered a platform for collaboration, with 72 South African entities having thus far signed their commitment to the UNGC principles.

This was against a backdrop of over 8 000 signatories globally.

Government had also indicated its support, with Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba committing six State-owned enterprises to signing the UNGC in July last year.

They joined parastatal Eskom, which was one of the first global signatories of the UNGC in 2000.

NBI CEO Joanne Yawitch said several of the challenges currently facing the country were being dealt with through the ten UNGC principles.

“The UNGC framework offers coherence in understanding the social, economic and environmental impacts of business. The adoption of these principles in our legislation, such as the New Companies Act, is further proof of the need to work towards more sustainable outcomes in South Africa,” she said.

UNGC Local Network chairperson and Public Investment Corporation CEO Elias Masilela added that the Local Network intended to establish a UNGC CEO Forum this year, bringing together business leaders for sustainability championing in South Africa and to position the UNGCs ten principles at the core of corporate strategies.

“I am not a believer in forcing behaviour through regulation. I am a believer in entities and individuals that take it upon themselves, in a voluntary fashion, to do the right things, to do things for the good of the economy,” he said.

Masilela replaced long-standing UNGC Local Network chairperson Futhi Mtoba, who served concurrently at the global board of the UNGC in New York until early last year.

The UNGC Local Network still has a seat at the global board through Masilela, who started his tenure by representing South Africa in New York in December 2012.