Eleven Spanish multinationals have established a campaign to support
the United Nations’ millennium development goals, which set targets on
issues such as poverty and HIV/Aids. The companies, which are all
members of the UN Global Compact and collectively employ 650,000 staff
in more than 100 countries, signed an agreement last month to share ideas and work together on meeting the targets.
The eight development goals have a target date of 2015, and were agreed
by all the world’s countries and leading development institutions at
the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.
The Spanish initiative arose from a meeting last month of the Spanish
Forum for Corporate Reputation in Madrid chaired by Princess Cristina
of Spain.
The companies involved are Abertis, Grupo Agbar, BBVA, Ferrovial, Gas
Natural, Iberdrola, Iberia, Novartis, Renfe, Repsol YPF and Telefónica.
Their chief executives will be invited to outline how they intend to
meet the goals at a Global Compact Leaders Summit in July in Geneva.
