AA1000SES Consultation Feedback Form

Romania, 3rd December 2009

This form submits comments and recommendations to AccountAbility and the AA1000SES Technical
Committee. This form was completed during the event and using feedback received after the event. It
captures the major thoughts on each issue, including when different stakeholders have different views.
Consensus was generally reached on most feedback. Three types to consensus are marked: BC: broad
consensus, C: consensus, LC: little consensus.

First Session – Stakeholder Engagement in General

AA1000 SES Consultation, in Bucharest on 3rd December 2009

Broad
Topic for discussion # Feedback comment/recommendation consensus
or not?

What is stakeholder engagement? Apart from the definitions from AA1000, AA

Stakeholder Engagement handbook and
ISO26000, the following was tabled during
the consultation:

Stakeholder Engagement (SE) can be a way

of doing business in accordance with
sustainable development principles and in a
1 transparent and organized way, involving C
stakeholders in every field where it is
possible.

Stakeholder engagement is seen as a

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) tool
that companies or any kind of organization
use within their CSR programs in Romania.
There is little delimitation that is drawn
2 between the two concepts – when trying to C
define stakeholder engagement the
discourse always comes back to how CSR is
understood and how companies chose to
define their CSR strategy.
 SE is a way to
- involve the stakeholders into the
company’s strategy development
process

3 - find out the stakeholders expectations C

- find out the company’s response to
stakeholders expectations
SE is constant dialog in a formalized
process.

A brainstorming of short phrases to describe

what participants felt SE is gave the
following:
- Enabling Stakeholders to feel valued
BC
- Identifying the concerns of the
stakeholders on any issue
- Knowing when to be humble
- Ensuring that the stakeholder concerns are
included in the programs
- Team empowerment
- Identifying and managing risks at a useful
stage
- Being honest to your mission and
respecting your stakeholder’s expectation
- Building a mindset where everyone is
4
aware of everyone else’s goals

- Tool to build a culture of respect and

C
accountability
- Setting borders through which we
undertake our activities
- Educate and inform stakeholders
- Help stakeholders on their advancement
- Disclosure of material issues

- Defining organizational strategies in line

with all(?) stakeholder expectations LC

- Ensuring sustainable profit/success

- Inclusion and empowerment of all(?)
stakeholders

5 Increasing awareness of issues BC

How does stakeholder engagement
contribute to accountability and 6 Finding joint solutions BC
sustainable development?
Why do organisations undertake
stakeholder engagement and who
benefits from stakeholder engagement?
What is the role of stakeholder
engagement in different contexts:
1. Business/organisational
strategy
2. One off projects
3. Government/public
sector consultation
How does stakeholder engagement
relate to other sustainability standards,
guidelines and initiatives?
What are some of the common success
factors and common challenges to good
quality stakeholder engagement?
7 Enabling programs to deliver desired results BC
For a successful management in a chaotic
8 world SE can help bring real benefits to BC
governments, companies and communities.
9 For image building C
10 In response to public pressure C
11 To make informed decisions BC
- Improve products and services (e.g. To
conduct surveys about products and services
for input to the commercial strategy).
- Improve employee relations, efficiency
and satisfaction:- through organisational
12 culture and employee inter-relationship C
surveys that results in a follow-up action
plan.
- To build understanding and win-win
partnerships with NGO’s and associations.
- To formalise efficient dialogue with -
13 shareholders BC
- To structure and support company -
14 supplier relations. BC
- To enable timely and efficient dialogue
and consultation on specific issues with
15 C
Public authorities,
It is an inherent part of any standard,
16 guideline or initiative that needs clarity of C
thought and effective communication
It is a discipline, skill set and culture
17 needed to reach the goals of sustainability C
standards, guidelines and initiatives
It benefits standards, guidelines and
18 initiatives from both a line management C
and discipline department perspective.
Transparency, honesty, credibility,
19 effective communication, dialogue, BC
accountability
Being able to define a solution in
20 BC
partnership with key stakeholders
Being honest about the customs and culture
21 BC
of the stakeholders
 Challenges:
- If an organisation is not truly committed
(materiality and inclusivity) to engage with
stakeholders then management and
employees can always find justifications
22 why not to continue. BC
- genuine availability of both stakeholders
and companies to discuss / engage
- stakeholders to have realistic expectations
and companies to be clear about what they
can and cannot offer

Deciding whether SE is a management style

23 C
or an organisational culture

What are some of the barriers to making
stakeholder engagement a more 24
strategic considerations in organisation
(or where this has been achieved, what
were the important factors) 25
Old ways of seeing things – e.g. information
is power, manage stakeholders rather than BC
manage stakeholder engagement
Insufficient time and resources allocated BC

Designing the SE process too narrowly and

26 so leaving out important issues or BC
stakeholders and so loosing credibility

It can be helpful to develop models of

stakeholder engagement that shows how SE
27 BC
can benefit an organisation in good times
and bad.

Maybe because many general terms are

used to describe stakeholder engagement,
Anything else? there is often a different understanding of
what it means at many levels of an
28 BC
organisation. Help is therefore needed to
help stakeholders, including top
management in companies, to understand
what SE is and to promote its principles.

29

30

Any additional general comments: BC

A discussion on obstacles to Stakeholder Engagement in Romania:

Summary: One of the obstacles - and maybe the most important - in developing an efficient stakeholder
engagement in Romania is the mentality that also reflects on the organizational culture. On one hand, the
employees of a company do not yet fully understand that their own involvement in the success of the
company can also translate to their own personal and professional success. On the other hand, the owners of
these companies seek to build a successful business without fully acknowledging their stakeholders and
therefore ignoring a very important step in their sustainable development.

Employees, with some good exceptions, do not believe in the products or services that they sell, are rarely
involved in the decision making within a company and if they are empowered to take decisions they do not
necessarily have the right set of skills or the proper motivation to do so.

As for how companies communicate with their public, we see a rather one-way communication strategy. It is
rare that companies build an efficient dialogue with their clients; they tend to avoid being transparent with
their stakeholders or being responsible for the decisions that affect them. On a scale of engagement of inform
– consult – include – collaborate – empower the general tendency is to do incomplete and rather biased
informing and company controlled partial consulting. The levels of including, collaborating and empowering
tends to be only for a limited number of stakeholders often without objective strategic or professional
criteria.

A necessary step to ensure a proper understanding of the stakeholder engagement concept, and its latent
potential for organisational development, is by changing this mentality in people and by making them realize
the dual role that we are all playing - that of a stakeholder and of a responsible for our actions towards our
own stakeholders. Building self-confidence through peer challenge and support is one of the tools that we
need to employ.

Part of the inherent problem faced by decision owners is an overall lack of confidence – but not just self-
confidence but also institutional conference. There was a general feeling among the participants that this is
founded also on a lack of self-esteem. It was felt that part of the solution to this was to acknowledge that
social confidence and competences are largely build in first few years of life and that this is often neglected
in the current educational and parenting approach, a situation made worse by individual civic responsibility
being a little asleep. Participants felt that the system of national education needs to build more of a feeling
of cooperation and solidarity.

The common challenges when approaching stakeholder engagement in Romania, therefore, include:

1. Lack of self confidence, lack of personal goals, lack of implication in most of decision making
processes

2. People need support to build their own confidence and it has to start with their upbringing

3. Overall lack of confidence in decision makers and institutions

4. A very specific cultural and anthropological matrix of the Romanian nation

5. Huge lack of ownership in the public area and consequently lack of responsibility

6. Lack of long term vision within the governments – stakeholders should pressure their governments to
create this vision

7. Lack of honesty about capacity

8. The culture of mass consumption that will lead to lack of equity and that will affect sustainable
development and environmental responsibility

A discussion on the business case of Stakeholder Engagement in Romania:

As mentioned in point 1 above, stakeholder engagement (SE) is seen as a corporate social responsibility (CSR)
tool that organizations use within their CSR programs in Romania. There is little delimitation drawn between
the two concepts – when trying to define stakeholder engagement the discourse often came back to how CSR
is understood and how companies chose to define their CSR strategy.

A main challenge people presented is justifying SE/CSR as a business case – justifying within the organisation
versus justifying within the community / among the external stakeholders. This challenge raises other
questions that are all revolved around the moral obligation of a company towards a community:

1. What is the content of the moral obligation?

2. Is a company obliged to do everything for the community and neglect business?

3. What does it mean being moral, who can define it and how moral is a company in its business?

4. Are they fully responsible towards the clients even if that means constructing counterproductive
PR/branding?

5. When a company has a CSR program in a school is that moral or immoral to consider it a way to win
future clients?

6. A reputable sales strategy – is this moral since the business’s purpose is to have success in achieving
its own goals?

 The participants eventually proposed that bottom line is the main question of how we together ensure the
sustainability of the society, not about the morality of the companies’ decisions, debating over right or wrong
and putting a philosophical accent on CSR.

As for stakeholder engagement the mind set and mentality should go towards a sit down at the same table and
discuss issues relevant to all stakeholders. The concept is new in Romania and people fear that before
debating it there is an acute need to arrive at a common equal understanding of what stakeholder
engagement is.

A discussion on the role of education in enabling Stakeholder Engagement in Romania:

In general, the way the educational system is currently functioning lacks the ability to build a strong feeling
of cooperation and solidarity between the students and, moreover, neglects building confidence in students.
Universities, with some rare exceptions, are not challenging students enough and students don’t feel they get
rewarded enough for their initiatives.

 This is not the general approach. There are, for example, universities that encourage students to do
volunteer work within nongovernmental organizations. This also is influenced by how young people
envision their future profession and what they expect from their studies/educational system.

Overall, students are considered an important stakeholder by companies who give them opportunities to learn
and do internships as they are well aware of the fact that one day they will become employees and/or
potential clients.

The feedback from educationalists within the participants was that is very important to start considering in
Romania partnerships between the business environment and secondary and high schools, not only universities
– the main reason is that pupils should be more involved and challenged, and an improved professional
education should come from an early age.

Further comment was that a more clear awareness that peoples’ main social competences are build within the
first three years of life and are developed throughout the entire life - so there is the need to have a society
that is aware of this issue and take into consideration all stages in life.

Some examples of engagement given by the participants were:

Blogging and social networking

Through the online program Responsabilitatesociala.ro some stakeholder engagement initiatives are being
done such as:

1. Romanian bloggers are invited to participate at an online opinion poll on how companies ran their CSR
programs in the previous year and what recommendations they can give for the following one

2. Periodical meetings with different stakeholders are organized where nongovernmental organizations are
invited to discuss issues related to different fields of activity

 The participants debated the issue related to how bloggers are chosen to participate at the online opinion
poll, what are the criteria that makes them eligible for the poll and whether they can be considered non-
biased as the public suspect that many companies pay bloggers to promote the companies. In general, opinion
leaders in the Romanian public are quite suspicious towards this kind of public polls as bloggers are a tool
used very much to manipulate public opinion. This however is not the case of all companies. Some companies
appear to come out well on the ranking of from bloggers who have been impressed by their openness to
address issues that they had previously been criticised for.

Multi-stakeholder forums:

Multi stakeholder forums (MSF) start to gain some success in Romania despite many years of difficulties. One
point of view stated in a FAO E-Forum was “Romania is still unprepared to work in multi-stakeholder platforms
because there is no tradition of sharing and asking for information, especially in open decision-making
processes”.

Recently, however, work is being conducted that sets out to equalise the power share between stakeholders
and this is proving quite successful. More clarity is introduced as to roles and responsibilities for the issues at
stake. Respect for decision ownership is central to the success of this process. It has proven to be
extraordinarily successful and creates significant win-win benefits for all concerned, including and even
especially, responsible companies, authorities and NGOs. The process incorporates respect and support for
local cultures and tradition, and a humble, clear and honest approach from the organisations who traditionally
wield the power.
Network facilitation: Unesco European Center for Higher Education

The UNESCO Center needs to monitor change all the time – so they consider a proactive approach.

The UNESCO Center is among other things a laboratory of ideas, a standard setter, a clearing house, a
capacity builder in UNESCO fields of competence and a catalyst for international cooperation.

By working to contribute towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the UNESCO Center has
a Social Responsibility agenda (ex. promote policy agenda, undertake projects relevant to development,
provide consultancy, link with the Romanian authority, assist member states in enhancing the quality of
higher education by developing international and regional cooperation).

Their authority or international agency stakeholders are: national authority, non/governmental organizations,
national commissions, Council of Europe, UNITWIN UNESCO chair, etc.

Their customer stakeholders are: Member States, universities, institutes, experts and policy makers.

Their partner stakeholders are: governmental and nongovernmental organizations, business community,
international organizations.

UNESCO Center does stakeholder engagement through activities such as: consultation, dialogue, training,
study visits, transfer of know how; participative approach to business with focus on stakeholders, proactive
perspective and commitment to sustainable development.

 The participants were impressed with the level of competence of the UNESCO center and acknowledged it
as a good environment for future related meetings linked to stakeholder engagement, social responsibility and
CSR capacity building initiatives.
 Second Session - AA1000SES

Broad
Topic for discussion # Feedback comment/recommendation consensus or
not?

What should the To enable objective pre-engagement strategic assessment and

focus/aim of the 1 planning and post-engagement auditing in support of an C
AA1000SES be (i.e. organisation’s development.
should it remain
focused on CSR issues, A project management, strategy development, risk mitigation
or should it address 2 C
and opportunity harnessing support tool.
wider
engagement/dialogue 3 An enabler of an organisation’s sustainable development. C
and participation
issues) A clarification guideline for what is meant as effective
4 BC
stakeholder engagement.

Clarify purpose and process of stakeholder engagement – and

5 BC
set an internationally recognised minimum standard.
Are there any gaps in
the market that Enable and facilitate the integration of social, environmental
6 C
AA1000SES should try and economic responsibility into core business practice.
and fill?
Strengthen the credibility of corporate / organisational
7 C
reporting.

Professionalise stakeholder engagement as a core discipline for

8 C
employees to support sustainable organisational growth.

9 Create clarity of organisational purpose. C

Be a process for organisational awareness of stakeholders and

What should the scope 10 BC
their concerns.
of the AA1000SES
cover? 11 Project management with stakeholders as a core component. C

Clarify and communicate the meaning of sustainable

12 BC
development as seen from stakeholders’ perspective.

13 Provide a minimum sustainability audit. BC

Clarify link between an operations core objectives and the

How can the 14 BC
strategic objectives of engagement.
AA1000SES link
stakeholder Clarify stakeholder engagement’s role and process in the
engagement more 15 creation of vision, mission, values, goals, strategy, tactics and BC
effectively with action plans.
strategy and core
operation? Demonstrate / clarify the difference between stakeholder
16 mapping and strategic objectives of an organisation and those BC
of the day to day decisions and activities.
 17 BC

What elements of 18 BC
good practice, and
which challenges,
does it need to
address?

BC

19

Stakeholder engagement is about creating a fair balance

between necessary decisions and activities and their
stakeholders’ interests. This balance is operationalised through
assigning an engagement level for each partnering of decisions
or activities with their respective stakeholder group. (note – the
traditional third level of engagement is changed from involve to
include here as this is clearer for translation purpose).

See Annex A, Table A.1 of ISO/DIS 26000 for cross-sectoral

initiatives – it needs to provide state-of-the-art stakeholder
20 engagement guidance for minimum standards to achieve the BC
standards vision. Needs to provide this at process, managing
and auditing levels.
Which other standards
does it need to To be fully integrated – the AA1000SES needs its own clear
aligned with and how? 21 BC
vision and mission drawn up.

Linked to international conventions (e.g. Espoo, Aarhus, etc)

22 and common legislation (e.g. EIAs, strategic regional planning, C
etc)

23 Best practice in communication / marketing, etc guidance C

What should the

This should be tied to its vision and mission. Requirement
balance be between
should be enough to ensure minimum adherence. Guidance
requirements and 24 BC
should enable organisations to more robustly become
guidance?
sustainable (economically, socially and environmentally).
 This should be tied to its vision and mission. Possible both
certification and guidance. Certification should be enough to
How should the 25 ensure minimum adherence. Guidance should enable C
standard function in organisations to more robustly become sustainable
the market place (economically, socially and environmentally).
(e.g. should it become
a certification The standard should set out to be of a sufficiently high level so
standard, remain as that organisations who do put the effort in to follow it do reap
guidance or something the benefits of institutionalised stakeholder engagement. This
else?) 26 standard should be such that an organisation cannot simply use C
it to present a more professionally structured responsibility
report that in reality lacks both the spirit and the results of
genuine organisational engagement on the ground.

In an age of so many different management tools, it may be

needed to protect the AA1000SES from being perceived to be
Anything else? 28 just another management tool. Need clarity on how SE BC
complements project management, strategy creation, general
management, etc.

Special thanks (BC) to the participants, organisers and partners of this one-day consultation on
stakeholder engagement in Romania:
Bucharest Stakeholder Engagement Day 3rd December 2009 Participants:

Anamaria Bogdan <anamaria.bogdan@maimultverde.ro>,

Andreea Mihaila <mihaila.ag@pg.com>,
Andreea Koster <andreea.koster@habitat.ro>,
Angela Galeta <angela.galeta@vodafone.com>,
Armin Hesselmann <hesselmann.a@pg.com>,
Camelia Crisan <camelia.crisan@comunicare.ro>,
Catalina Pislaru <Catalina.Pislaru@orange.ro>,
Claudia Iatan <office@obiectiff.ro>,
Cristian Ducu <cducu1@gmail.com>,
Cristiana Anca <cristiana.anca@hotmail.co.uk>,
Cristina Gross <comercial@procertlaboratory.ro>,
Cristina Zorlin <czorlin@mmuncii.ro>,
Dacian Lavu <dacian.lavu@AstonEco.com>,
Dragos Dehelean <dragos.dehelean@selenis.ro>,
Eugen Crai <ecrai@unicef.org>,
Ioana Betieanu <ibetieanu@wwfdcp.ro>,
Jane Greenwood <jane.greenwood@britishschool.ro>,
Jen Kemp <jen.kemp@britishschool.ro>,
John Aston <john.aston@astoneco.com>,
Kinga Niculescu <kinga.niculescu@AstonEco.com>,
Laura Grunberg <L.Grunberg@cepes.ro>,
Loredana Caradimu <loredana.caradimu@ogilvy.com>,
Luminita Oprea <luminita.oprea@holcim.com>,
Margareta Bercher <Margareta.Bercher@petrom.com>,
Maria Gheorghiu <maria@ovid.ro>,
Mario Demezzo <mario.demezzo@principesa.ro>,
Mihaela Cretu <Mihaela.Cretu@ogilvy.com>,
Oana Nastase <oana.nastase@rompetrol.com>,
Oana Parvu <oana.parvu@tailoredsolutions.ro>,
Raluca Dan <raluca.dan@salvatidelta.ro>,
Ramona Brad <brad.rm@pg.com>,
Ruxandra Soare <goodartofnoon@gmail.com>,
Sandra Pralong <spralong@gmail.com>,
Silvia Misu <silvia.misu@fdsc.ro>,
Silvia Mihalache <silvia.mihalache@provident.ro>,
Simona NEGREA <snegrea@hotmail.com>,
Simona Apostol <simona.apostol@floyd.ro>,
Sorin Victor Roman <sorin.roman@AstonEco.com>