Stakeholder engagement is accepted but not understood. There has been a growing awareness of the importance of engagement; you can’t read a company report or a government policy document these days without seeing the words ‘stakeholder engagement’. But the understanding of its role in helping deal with concerns, risks and opportunities and in developing strategies, policies and plans is less robust. In large part this is due to a lack of understanding of what constitutes quality stakeholder engagement and how it should contribute to the rest of your organisation. This revision process and the final AA1000SES will help to address this and enable organisations to use stakeholder engagement to more effectively contribute to sustainable development in an accountable manner.
The AA1000SES was orginally published in 2005 and now the time is right for it be revised (click here for more information on the original standard) . The revision process intends to capture and enhance current practice in order to substantially build on the exposure draft of the AA1000SES. There is a need to move the AA1000SES beyond a CSR process and make it more strategically relevant for engagements across businesses, governments and other organisations. The new AA1000SES needs to provide a mechanism for engagement that can be robust at the global level but flexible enough for local application, that looks beyond process to outcomes and impact evaluation. There is also a need to better link the numerous sustainability initiatives and their understanding of quality stakeholder engagement.
To achieve global credibility the revision process will be international, accessible and transparent. Surveys and research, international consultations and online consultation are the approaches being used. Access and transparency are key challenges for any standards development processes. Who has had the chance to particpate and influence the standard and how do we know who has participated and influenced the standard? The collaborative drafting process that this website enables addresses these two challenges head on. This website makes it possible for thousands of individuals and organisations to provide their input without facing access barriers such as the cost of travel to meetings and the difficulty of cutting through dominant voices. It also keeps a transparent record of everyone who has participated as well as the nature of their input. There will be 3 consultation periods of at least 60-90 days, dates of these will be published during the process. The final standard will be published in late 2010.
To give your comments on this website, click the View/Edit AA1000SES to make specific points on the standard, or click General Comments if you have a more broad comment to make. You can also email you comments to AccountAbility, although we will upload these onto the website to ensure transparency.
Please keep an eye on our Consultations page and as we confirm the locations and dates, please get in touch if you’d like more information on attending. If you are interested in hosting a consultation in a location that isn’t listed, please let us know.
The AccountAbility Standards Board and the Stakeholder Engagement Standard Technical Committee have input and final responsibility for the text that will be published. As such they will be active participants on this website, both during open sessions and Technical Committee deliberations which will take place between open sessions. For more information on AA1000 Standards Governance and to view the Board and AA1000SES Technical Committee members click here.
