Category Archives: Stakeholder engagement

Sustainability – what’s real?

There are a belwildering array of sustainability ratings – but what do we believe? How do we know they are measuring and evaluating the right things? In their Rate the Raters documents, SustainAbility identified over 50 sustainability rating agencies. SustainAbility will offer insights into how credible each rating system is, but I suspect that many imponderables willContinue reading “Sustainability – what’s real?”

Engagement stories – the New Zealand Army

The New Zealand Army provides an inspiring example of a journey of engagement, and how the engagement ethos supports their effectiveness in the field. New Zealand is a young nation with a compressed history. 150 years ago, British and Colonial forces were engaged in a series of wars with indigenous Mäori tribes, leaving the inevitableContinue reading “Engagement stories – the New Zealand Army”

Sustainability leadership report

How do you know if a company is green-washing, or over-promoting its sustainability performance? Brand Logic’s recently released Sustainability Leadership Report compares the perceptions of sustainability of 100 prominent brands, with their sustainability reality. Their matrix, sorts the brands into 4 categories: leaders – those who perform well in environmental, social and governance (ESG) dimensionsContinue reading “Sustainability leadership report”

Public Participation Spectrum

Alexis Lindsay’s excellent blog led me to the Public Participation Spectrum. The spectrum outlines engagement intensity from informing through to consulting, involving, collaborating and empowering. The model is also relevant to engagement in the commercial world. For example, how would your staff rate the degree of participation that you enable? The five levels of engagement/participation could alsoContinue reading “Public Participation Spectrum”

Engagement stories: Kaipara tidal power

Crest Energy has won approval to install turbines in the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour in northern New Zealand. But when lengthy compliance and court processes position stakeholders as adversaries, there will inevitably be losers. How might we find a win-win? Crest Energy plans to install up to 200 turbines in the mouth of theContinue reading “Engagement stories: Kaipara tidal power”

Engagement stories – Mäori Health Services

Just decades ago, the gulf between health practitioners and the many Mäori (the indigenous people of New Zealand), impacted on the quality of health outcomes for Mäori. Bridging this gap is an engagement process. This is the first of my engagement stories and it is close to home. My wife, Huria works as an educatorContinue reading “Engagement stories – Mäori Health Services”

Introducing engaging stories

I’m convinced that stakeholder engagement is the leading edge of sustainability, and that those organisations most skilled at engagement, are more likely to survive and thrive. Engagement isn’t a new practice; good communicators have been engaging for centuries – but with stakeholder engagement emerging as a discipline we have a better understanding of both theContinue reading “Introducing engaging stories”

Reflecting on blogging

Less than a year into blogging, I am getting a glimpse of its potential. I thought it might be useful for those of you considering the blogging option for personal creative expression, stakeholder engagement, or as an option for a business website. The free option first I started, as many do, by opting for aContinue reading “Reflecting on blogging”

Twitter Engagement for Business

Here is a link to a post from the TopRank website by Dave Folkens. A brief extract: ” At a minimum, this should be on the radar for any business that cares about how its brand is viewed. In the Harvard Business Review study mentioned earlier, a stunning 75% of the companies in the surveyContinue reading “Twitter Engagement for Business”