RECOMMENDATION REPORT

Presented to: Nestle Canada

Prepared By: Corey Isenberg, Communication Consultant

Ryerson University
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.3

INTRODUCTION...4

DISCUSSION & FINDINGS ..5

CONCLUSION & RECCOMENDATIONS...7

REFRENCES...8

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The following report discusses the various ways that Nestle Canada could improve their
communications with stakeholders. Through an analysis of the Lundgren text, Risk
Communication: A Handbook for Communicating Environmental, Safety, and Health Risk,
recommendations are given to Nestle, and then in the end, the most effective one is chosen.

Through the analysis of the textbook, several approaches to communicating risk are discussed,
which include the National Research Councils Approach, the Convergence Communication
Approach, the Social Trust Approach, and the Mental Models Approach.

In the end, the best approach to improve communications at Nestle Canada would be the use the
National Research Councils Approach, and focusing communication efforts on consensus
communication. There needs to be a scientific group representing your organization, and
communicating with your stakeholders interactively gaining their opinions. This will help Nestle
Canada to effectively improve their communications for handling the plastic water bottle crisis.

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 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this report is to advise Nestle Canada on the best way to communicate the
risk/crisis of using plastic water bottles. Using plastic water bottles produces a risk to the
environment, and this report will recommend the best way to communicate to stakeholders about
this issue. It will also recommend what they should do to improve their communications.
Through an analysis of the Lundgren text, Risk Communication: A Handbook for
Communicating Environmental, Safety, and Health Risk, recommendations will be given to
Nestle Canada to improve communications.

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 DISCUSSION & FINDINGS

The Lundgren text divides risk communication into three different categories which include care
communication, consensus communication, and crisis communication. When it comes to your
company producing plastic water bottles, and this being a risk to the environment, the type of
risk communication that would fit the best for this risk would be consensus communication. This
type of communication is used to inform and encourage groups to work together to reach a
decision about how the risk will be managed (Lundgren & McMakin, 2013, pg. 4). Your
organization needs to inform and encourage the public, and your stakeholders, to work together
to reach the decision of how your organization is going to prevent the risk of your water bottles
negatively affecting the environment. You need to move to a more environmentally safe way to
drink water. You need to involve your audience, being stakeholders with your risk
communication efforts, in order to communicate effectively.

There are a number of different approaches to communicating risk. Within each approach, there
are components, which include how messages are sent and received, how conflicts are managed,
and how decisions are made (Lundgren & McMakin, 2013, pg. 11). There are several approaches
that would be helpful to your organization for improving communications with stakeholders.
One approach to communicating risk is through the National Research Councils Approach. This
approach defines risk communication as the interactive process of exchange of information and
opinions among individuals, groups, and institutions concerning a risk or potential risk to human
health or the environment (NRC, 1989). In other words, this approach entails a panel of
individuals with a background in science, who spread technical information and gather
information about the opinions and concerns of nonscientific groups (NRC, 1989). These
nonscientific groups would be your stakeholders. This approach would be of benefit to your
organization for improving communications because your organization produces water bottles
and sells them to stakeholders. This approach is beneficial because it involves the participation
of stakeholder groups, and it allows for the exchange of information and opinions. This could
help you determine how to effectively communicate with your stakeholders according to their
knowledge and opinions.

A second approach to communicating risk is through the Convergence Communication

Approach. This approach was developed by Everett Rogers, and it states that communication is a
long-term process, where an organization and its stakeholders cycle information back and forth,
and eventually meet onto common ground (Rogers & Kincaid, 1981). The audience, being
stakeholders, must be involved in the risk communication process. This process must be a
dialogue, meaning information going back and forth (Rogers & Kincaid, 1981). This would be
important to your organization because you need to make sure that your companys values are in
line with your stakeholders, and how they feel. Your stakeholders are the ones who buy products
from your organization, so they want to feel that their values are being met. Involving your
stakeholders in your communication efforts, and receiving feedback from them, is necessary in
order for your communication to be effective.

A third approach to communicating risk is through the Social Trust Approach. This approach
holds the idea that if an organization managing the risk has the same values as the stakeholders,
they will place their trust in them to properly manage the risk (Cvetkovich & Winter, 2001).

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Your organization needs to make sure that you properly assess your stakeholders values, and
that you communicate to them how you will deal with plastic water bottles effectively if a crisis
to the environment would occur, and your water bottles were found as part of the crisis.

A fourth approach to communicating risk is through the Mental Models Approach. This
approach comes from researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University, and it involves peoples mental
models of a situation, and cognitive psychology (Morgan et al., 2002). When using this
approach, communicators pick an audience for which the communication will be directed to, and
then they interview the members to see how they view the risk (Morgan et al., 2002). Primary
research using the mental models approach was conducted for this report. Mental model
interviews were conducted with 20 stakeholders and several questions were asked about water
bottles. One of the questions asked was who would you trust for information on water and water
bottles? From this question, it was found that the stakeholders would not trust information from
companies. They would trust the government as the best source for this information. Statistics
and scientific information would be most trusted, and if a company could provide that, that
would make them trustworthy. This approach is important to your organization because your
communicators will need to understand the concerns and beliefs of your stakeholders to
effectively agree on a solution about the risk of using plastic water bottles.

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 CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

Presented in this report were a number of different approaches to communicating risk that would
be best for your organization. The approaches discussed include the National Research Councils
Approach, the Convergence Communication Approach, the Social Trust Approach, and the
Mental Models Approach. After a careful analysis, the best approach that your organization
should use for improving communications would be to use the National Research Councils
Approach. This is the best approach because it involves the participation of your stakeholders.
This approach also involves risks about potential risks to human health or the environment.
Clearly, plastic water bottles are a risk to the environment. With this approach, scientific groups
could communicate with your stakeholders, which are a non-scientific group about plastic water
bottles. They could communicate how to effectively handle a crisis if your water bottles were
found negatively affecting the environment. This approach is also tied to consensus
communication, which as stated before, is a type of risk communication which is used to inform
and encourage groups to work together to reach a decision of how a risk will be managed. These
two aspects go hand in hand, because your organization needs to involve the public so that they
know their voices, values, and opinions are heard.

The recommendation for using consensus communication and the National Research Councils
Approach would be to first gather a scientific group to represent your organization. The next step
would be to work together with your stakeholders on a way to produce plastic water bottles or to
get rid of them so that they are not negatively affecting the environment. Your organization
would need to gather opinions from your stakeholders to see how they feel about plastic water
bottles. Your stakeholders might also bring information forward to you to encourage you to
change your actions. This information would help your organization ensure that they are
communicating the plastic water bottle crisis issue effectively.

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 REFRENCES

Cvetkovich, G. and P. L. Winter. (2001). Social Trust and the Management of Risks to
Threatened and Endangered Species. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk
Analysis, December 25, 2001, Seattle, Washington. (Source: Lundgren & McMakin, p. 19).

Lundgren, R. & McMakin, A. (2013). Risk Communication: A Handbook for Communicating

Environmental, Safety, and Health Risks (5th ed.). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press; Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley. ISBN-10: 1118456939 | ISBN-13: 978-1118456934

Morgan, M. G., B. Fischhoff, A. Bostrom, and C. J. Atman. (2002). Risk Communication: A

Mental Models Approach. Cambridge University Press, New York. (Source: Lundgren &
McMakin, p. 13).

NRC (National Research Council). (1989). Improving Risk Communication. National Academy
Press, Washington, DC. (Source: Lundgren & McMakin, p. 12).

Rogers, E. M. and D. L. Kincaid. (1981). Communications Networks: Toward a New Paradigm

for Research. The Free Press, New York. (Source: Lundgren & McMakin, p. 15).