At the Seattle event, we paired this topic with Social Investing. It allowed for a different discussion focused on financial impacts and how it is affected by stakeholder engagement. Agreeing to who stakeholders were was fairly easy: decision makers, ownership, employees, environmental advocates, investors, suppliers, communities where business operate, legislators, municipalities.
Challenges:
1. Creating a sufficient sense of crisis for stakeholder action.
a. Barrier -Education and awareness lacking
b. Reality- People may not care enough. Why are citizens not more demanding.
c. How far should businesses go for the environment?
d. Should government follow business of vice versa?
e. Businesses are reactive to consumer demands.
f. Is REI doing good for competitive advantage or social good?
g. Businesses need to decide if they want to take on hefty risk of being pioneers.
2. Prioritizing most meaningful method to engage with stakeholder
a. What is best fit for a company: 1) Meaningful input; 2) Right issues – priority?
b. Lots of momentum from status quo.
c. Feminist view-
i. Breaking boundaries
ii. Diversity – Board –sustaining value to investors.
iii. Capitalize on strengths – relationships valued (facilitation skills and management not just technical).
3. Current investment options may not be best models for balancing individual freedom and public good.
a. Employees need to take more interest. Many don’t know how to take responsibility of their investments.
b. Profit motive very strong
c. Process to get involved in discussions not available.
d. Social ROI – need to be in core value of company.
e. SROI - Culturally not popular.
f. There are no absolutes- balance of impact is important (e.g. CFL with some mercury). No metrics solves all.
g. Investing locally- within the community (e.g. Ben and Jerry IPO only for NH residents first).

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