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In an effort to ensure that the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) generates meaningful outcomes, governments and other stakeholders increasingly support using the Conference to announce specific and time-bound commitments, and to agree on a “framework” to hold each other accountable for results. This so-called “Compendium of Commitments” has been criticized as suggesting a “bottom up”, “pledge-and-review” approach that will lead to business-as-usual outcomes that don’t meet the sustainable development challenges ahead of us. In the few months remaining, proponents of the Compendium of Commitments will have to demonstrate that this approach will lead to ambitious actions and that the accountability framework is sufficiently robust to incentivize and track performance. Rio+20 participants can learn from the range of experiences with past pledge-and-review initiatives and focus on ways to improve the quality of the content of pledges and of the institutions and procedures designed to review them.