Sustainability and Stakeholder Engagement

Blog hiatus

2010-05-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

I'm on a blog hiatus, and have been for the last several months, while I was applying to MBA programs. I have enrolled at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, so the hiatus will continue while I focus on my studies.

Thanks for reading!

Great Resource: PublicDecisions

2009-12-30T21:59:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet come across PublicDecisions, definitely check them out. They bill themselves as "the online academy for leaders and managers of public processes."

What this means in practice is that they offer a free monthly webinar and a variety of online conferences and trainings.

Upcoming events include an annual international online conference on stakeholder engagement in March, as well as mini-conferences on climate change and on health this spring.

Visit http://www.publicdecisions.com/ to learn more; they also have an email list, which I recommend signing up for.

Pharmaceutical Sector Report Released!

2009-11-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

I've released the first Stakeholder Score report, which evaluates the engagement practices of the five largest pharmaceutical companies: Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Roche Group, and Sanofi-Aventis. To download the report, please visit StakeholderScore.org.

Best Practice in Action: Customizable CSR Reports

2009-10-02T17:06:00.000-07:00

I recently came across Rabobank's reporting website for its sustainability report, annual report, and financial statements. Theirs is a great example of an engagement and reporting best practice: allowing stakeholders to build customizable reports based on their interests.

Why are customizable reports a good thing? Because they simplify information and make it easier to access. CSR reports can be a sea of data spread over many glossy pages, and it can be hard to find what you're looking for, especially with a PDF report. With a customizable report, on the other hand, stakeholders can build a mini-report including only information of interest, making it easier for them to analyze and synthesize the data. The ability for stakeholders to create a customizable report is one of 40 criteria included in the Stakeholder Score, a best practice guide and evaluation tool for companies' stakeholder engagement programs.

Having said that, on first glance, Rabobank's reporting site (see screenshot below) does NOT look simple and easy to access -- it looks more like a big, impenetrable database. However, with my first click, I found the interface surprisingly straightforward, and within two clicks I was able to find what I was looking for: information on Rabobank's stakeholder engagement, of course. : )

Another useful aspect of the interface is that the data is presented along many different axes - by geography, by product/service, and by customer type, for example. Not all of the top-level topics are clear to everyone (what exactly does a focus on "sponsoring" mean?), but with the variety of keywords, people can easily navigate to information that makes sense to them.

In addition, when you click on one topic (for example, on "Sustainability Report 2008"), the website responds by graying out any unrelated keywords. In this way, you can quickly see what topics interrelate, and can get a surprisingly insightful view into the company's CSR efforts from only the table of contents. For example, I can quickly see that Rabobank tracks its CSR performance in climate, energy, and human rights, but does not track performance in stakeholder engagement (another key best practice outlined in the Stakeholder Score).

I'm seeing more and more companies enable some sort of stakeholder customization on their CSR websites, though this is not yet standard by any means. It's a logical outgrowth of the social web, and I look forward to it becoming common practice.

Oct. 15 Webinar on Stakeholder Engagement

2009-10-01T22:01:00.001-07:00

In two weeks I'm giving a webinar entitled "The Stakeholder Score: 39 Questions to Ask Every Company." I'll be talking about the benefits of engaging stakeholders, what best practice looks like, and how to engage strategically. The webinar will take place on Thursday, October 15, at 12 noon EDT/9 am PDT.

Key Takeaways from the Webinar:

Definition of fundamental terms and issues, including stakeholder, stakeholder engagement, and stakeholder mapping
Stakeholder engagement strategies that work
A step-by-step approach to developing a stakeholder engagement plan that works for your company
Guidance in stakeholder relations, relationship-building and communications
An understanding of engagement best practice and how your company compares
A package of reference materials that provides a guide to the Stakeholder Score

The webinar is hosted by AltaTerra Research. For more information or to register, visit http://www.altaterra.net/events/event_details.asp?id=74007

Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement Conference Summary

2009-09-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement conference, which was held last week in New York. A few of my thoughts are below, but I'd also recommend reading Perry Goldschein and Beth Bengston's more comprehensive review of the event, published at GreenBiz.com.

It was a really enjoyable event, with a great mix of engagement-focused topics and sustainability-focused topics. I spoke on the last panel of the event, which focused on how to engage communities (community engagement was last but not least!). Community engagement is such a broad topic, and I focused primarily on how companies with industrial facilities can engage local communities around controversial issues, using The Environment Council's work with the Rugby Cement Plant as a case study. Another speaker on the panel, from EcoMedia, focused on the community giving aspects of engagement, citing a case study involving fundraising for a local school. I really appreciated having multiple types of community engagement represented on the panel, as we were able to give concrete examples of how a company should think differently about its community engagement, depending on how urgent and controversial the engagement topics are.

The Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement conference also served as the first public debut of The Stakeholder Score, a best practice guide and evaluation tool for companies' stakeholder engagement programs, which has recently been made available for free public use. I'm giving a webinar on the Stakeholder Score in a few weeks, on October 15th; for more information see the AltaTerra website.

Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement Conference in two weeks!

2009-08-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

I will be speaking on Tuesday afternoon. Let me know if you'll be there! Details below.

Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement, Sept. 14-15, New York, NY

Overview
Companies are facing more and more pressure from shareholders, customers and activists on sustainability issues including climate response, water use and resource management. Drawing on real-world examples and insight from activist investors and other stakeholder groups, this event will offer companies best practices in multi-stakeholder engagement on sustainability issues.

Speakers Include:

Denis Abrams, President and CEO, Benjamin Moore
Dave Rapaport, Sr. Director, Corporate Consciousness, Seventh Generation
Mary Powell, President and Chief Executive Officer, Green Mountain Power
Rob Reed, CEO and Founder, Max Gladwell
Richard Seireeni, Author, The Gort Cloud, and Founder and Director of The Brand Architect Group
Ed Klein, VP of Environmental Affairs, TetraPak

Key Reasons to Attend:

Hear the latest case studies from corporate leaders in stakeholder engagement
Find out how to use social media to build sustainability credibility
Learn why companies succeed and fail when engaging on sustainability issues
Identify strategies for prioritizing stakeholders and their green concerns
Plus, individual sessions on engaging employees, investors, consumers, communities and hard-to-reach groups on sustainability

EPA Releases Downloadable Pollution Data for 23,000 Industrial Facilities

2009-08-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

From Environmental Leader:

Information about companies’ toxic chemical releases is about to become a lot more public. To promote openness and transparency, the Environmental Protection Agency is releasing the raw, preliminary data behind the Toxics Release Inventory, which typically is published in the beginning of the year.

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a database that tracks chemical releases, recycling, energy recovery or treatment at 23,000 industrial facilities, contains information about chemical releases covering calendar year 2008.

This is great to see! By releasing the TRI data, the EPA allows stakeholders to analyze and re-mix the data in custom ways, to address questions or concerns of specific interest to them.

I hope that this is only the beginning. I'd like to see companies release all of their CSR data in an easily downloadable format, so that stakeholders can more easily identify year-on-year trends and compare within and across industries.

What's also interesting about the EPA's move is that they are basically crowdsourcing a portion of the verification and quality assurance of the TRI data, hoping that companies and stakeholders will look through the data and identify any mistakes.

According to the article, the data can be viewed in three ways:
- Facility Locator Tool: Find facility-specific information on releases of toxic chemicals using a zip code or parts of an address.
- Basic Data: Single downloadable files containing approximately 100 of the most commonly requested data fields.
- Basic Plus Data: Sets of seven downloadable files containing (in aggregate) all data submitted to EPA by facilities.

The data can be viewed here.

Give Feedback on Obama's Open Government Dialogue

2009-08-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

From Sandy Heierbacher at the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation:

Over a dozen leading organizations in public engagement and transparency (NCDD, IAP2, the League of Women Voters, AmericaSpeaks, OMB Watch, etc.) are collaboratively conducting a survey of people/groups who participated in any of the three stages of the recent Open Government Dialogue (the one that's feeding into the Open Government Directive on transparency, participation and collaboration). We'll be providing White House officials with feedback and recommendations on this online dialogue and drafting process based in large part on the results of the online survey posted at www.tiny.cc/jr76x , so please complete this 25-question survey THIS WEEK if you'd like to contribute.

The White House is looking to us for ideas and feedback to improve their future engagement efforts, so if you participated in any part of the Open Government Dialogue process (or even just watched the process without actively participating), we'd love it if you completed the survey. Please also feel free to share this announcement with your own networks.

President Obama and Public Engagement... A Look at the Last Six Months

2009-07-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

All CSR and stakeholder engagement practitioners should track what the Obama Adminstration is doing as it establishes new approaches to transparency and public participation. If you haven't, here's a great summary of the last six months, from the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation.

Some key excerpts:

On his first day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama issued a memorandum to leaders of executive departments and government agencies calling for a new era of transparency and open government.
Sonal Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, the search-engine company’s philanthropic arm, is head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.
On May 11, 2009, it was announced that the White House Office of Public Liaison is being tasked with an expanded mission, and a new name: the Office of Public Engagement.
May 21, 2009... [was the] official launch of the Open Government Initiative and the start of “online public engagement on the open government recommendations.”
This is an extraordinary time for our field, and as the Open Government Initiative nears its end, we have a unique opportunity to emphasize the programs and policies that we hope will be part of the directive – and to raise public awareness of the fact that we are being given an unprecedented opportunity to have a say in how government works.

Ford Surprises with Strong Stakeholder Engagement in its 2008/09 Sustainability Report

2009-06-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

Ford seems to be doing a lot of things right these days, especially compared with its US competitors. One of these is the strong stakeholder engagement it has integrated into its 2008/09 sustainability report. Here's a brief overview of what Ford did well.

1) Knowing its stakeholders
Ford knows who its stakeholders are and is transparent about how it communicates with each stakeholder group. This information helps stakeholders understand where they fit in to Ford's overall sustainability strategy and what the best methods are for interfacing with the company.

2) Working with Ceres
Ford has had a Ceres-led stakeholder review committee since 2004. If you're not familiar with Ceres' approach, they gather an independent group of about a dozen NGO experts, investors, and SRI analysts to review a company's sustainability initiatives and reports. Stakeholder committee members typically agree to serve on a particular company's committee for a several year period, and the committee members are chosen for their expertise on a variety of environmental, social, and governance issues pertinent to the company's operations.

Ford has published a particularly insightful summary of the way that the Ceres stakeholder committee has impacted their CSR program and sustainability report; their candidness is refreshing, and I'm glad to see that Ford has taken action to respond to stakeholder concerns. Of course, not every stakeholder concern has been addressed through this process, but Ford's transparency allows stakeholders to build upon existing conversations, instead of acting in a vacuum.

3) Publishing a materiality assessment with stakeholder concerns at the core
Ford uses two metrics to decided which issues are important to address (aka "material") in its CSR efforts: the issue's current or potential impact on the company, and the issue's importance to stakeholders. You can browse Ford's Materiality Matrix to see what issues are important to the company and (more interesting) what topics Ford thinks its stakeholders care about.

If you dig deeper, Ford has also categorized each issue by the company's ability to control or influence it, which hints that they have a strategic understanding of how CSR impacts their business. Finally, Ford is transparent about how and why its material issues have changed from year to year, which allows stakeholders to better understand Ford's approach to CSR.

Of course, there is more that Ford could do. One big question is how organizations not participating in the Ceres-led stakeholder committee can engage in substantive dialogue around Ford's sustainability performance. Another area for improvement would be the communication of stakeholder concerns, perhaps even direct stakeholder comments, throughout the entire report. For more ideas on improving stakeholder engagement, refer to the Stakeholder Score, a free tool for evaluating companies’ stakeholder engagement and reporting practices.

Please, take a look at Ford's 2008/09 Sustainability Report, and if you have any feedback for Ford, contact them at sustaina@ford.com.

Event in SF: Mini-Symposium on the Future of Public Participation

2009-06-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm helping organize a Mini-Symposium on the Future of Public Participation on Monday, June 22 in San Francisco, and would love to see you there! The event description is below and is also available on Facebook.

Mini-Symposium on the Future of Public Participation
Monday, June 22, 2009, 6:30pm - 9:00pm
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, 1155 Market St, San Francisco, CA

Schedule:
6 - 6.30pm
Refreshments – Please bring something to share if you can.

6.30 Back to the Future
What are the basics of public participation we need to keep? IAP2 foundations; Principles of Public Engagement
Facilitated by Moira Deslandes, Executive Director, International Association for Public Participation

6.50 Around the Globe
What does the future look like? Case studies from the UK and Australia
Speakers: Corinna Kester and Moira Deslandes

7.30 Tips, Tools, and Techniques
What works in contemporary society? Three practitioners will "show and tell" in fast and funky presentations
Tim Bonnemann on social media
Julie Gieseke on graphic representation
Sigal Shoham on non-violent communication

8.15 Public Policy Beyond 2009 – What is the place of Web 2.0 Applications?
With initiatives like the Obama Administration's Open Government Directive, what will and does that mean for public engagement in policy development and implementation?
Moira Deslandes, Executive Director of IAP2, will facilitate this discussion

8.45 Networking

Please register online through the Events Calendar at www.iap2.org
Direct link: http://iap2.org/cde.cfm?event=264432

Metaplan: A Technique for Sustainability Engagements

2009-06-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm facilitating an engagement process as the first meeting of my office's new Green Team. The primary technique I've chosen is the Metaplan, which is described here in some depth. It's a straightforward technique; participants brainstorm ideas on large sticky notes and place them on a central board for all to read. Then the ideas are grouped by the attendees, and, using small stickers, can be voted on to establish a prioritized list, if desired.

I selected Metaplan because I expect my colleagues to have lots of ideas for what our Green Team should do, and I want to be sure to capture all of these ideas. I also want to give people an opportunity to talk to each other about their ideas but don't want to do this in a large group setting, as this would make for a very long meeting. Metaplan allows lots of ideas to be generated and discussed and then grouped according to a desired outcome - in this case, the formation of workgroups to tackle the different issues brought up by participants. By the end of the meeting, we'll have formed a set of workgroups and identified their members, and our Green Team will be off to a good start!

Ceres Conference

2009-04-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended the Ceres Conference. Ceres is a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change. The organization has been very successful; among its work was the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative.

Overall, the conference was excellent, with many innovative thinkers in sustainability issues. Shortly I’ll be posting more with commentary on some specific sessions I attended. In the meantime, I really enjoyed this brief video about Ceres’ history and how far we’ve come with corporate social responsibility.