Top tips for influencing business from Shared Resources, Joint Solutions

SRJS is a 5-year partnership between the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, WWF Netherlands, the IUCN National Committee of The Netherlands (IUCN NL), and IUCN. Presenter Romie Goedicke, Senior Expert Green Economy at IUCN NL, explained that SJRS was borne from an understanding that civil society organisations (CSOs) cannot secure ecosystem services alone, so they need to develop flexible and dynamic partnerships with business and government. SRJS aimed to strengthen the capacities of 50 local NGOs in 16 low and middle-income countries to engage business on sustainability issues and to harvest and share best practices and lessons.

SJRS highlighted ways to engage businesses other than dissent and provided coaching, workshops on various topics, support on sectors that require attention like extractives, and space for peer-to-peer learning across landscapes.

Romie shared advice that were harvested by local NGOs during SRJS:

• Understand the business context and situation
• Consult with and gain mandate from the local communities
• Join forces with organisations that have similar goals
• Identify a champion in the company
• Use effective dialogue and good communications channels to build trust
• Demonstrate the benefits to business

Pauline Nantongo from Ecotrust in Uganda presented her organisation’s engagement with sugar company Kinyara Sugar. The Albertine Rift, one of the most biodiverse areas in Africa, which contains forests and wetlands, faced pressures from Kinyara Sugar that wanted to expand its sugar cane fields on its estate, from smallholder farmers who use slash-and-burn agriculture, and communities. Ecotrust engaged in a dialogue with Kinyara using the multi-stakeholder Kiiha partnership, which helped understand the needs of various parties in order to design an effective strategy. Pauline noted that SRJS helped understand how to position an idea and pick the right issues out of dialogue for a tailored business engagement strategy.

After conducting research, Ecotrust convinced Kinyara to act on biodiversity beyond its landscape to encompass the activities of its outgrowers, reduce pressures from the competition for water resources, and prevent more fires and encroachment on the wetland by the communities. As a result, Kinyara has chosen production efficiency over expansion and worked with the NGO on restoration activities, and with support from Ecotrust has adopted the State-led Kiiha Catchment Management plan to guide future sustainable investment.

Isdeen Omolere from Beninese NGO Eco-Bénin explained how they and the Benin Environment and Education Society (BEES) engaged Heidelberg Cement and its subsidiaries. The NGOs connected with Heidelberg Cement during the company’s Quarry Life Awards, an initiative to raise awareness on biodiversity; this led to further discussions with the company and its subsidiaries ScanTogo and CIMBénin. Isdeen noted that an exercise during the SRJS training helped to determine the impacts and dependencies of Heidelberg on nature, and highlight ecosystem services and vulnerabilities in the landscape.

The NGOs engaged with the businesses through extensive dialogue complemented with workshops and site visits. He also mentioned an SRJS’ lesson on defining a clear message and developing a convincing argument for business. Heidelberg’s biodiversity coordinator helped to champion the embedding of biodiversity in the company, leading it to undertake a landscape approach to its biodiversity actions by collaborating with the NGOs to protect and conserve endangered wildlife species across the border. The subsidiaries now seek advice from the NGOs on biodiversity and have signed an agreement for tree planting in a reserve. The companies have also adopted a State-led CSR charter on which the NGOs will provide support.

The voice of the conservation community on business engagement

In the last part of the webinar, IUCN presented an overview of the summary results of its survey on influencing business in the conservation community. Several headlines from the survey were shared, i.e. 92% of responders strongly agree and agree that the conservation community should directly engage with business.

A survey report with more statistics and reflections will be available at the end of this year.

Listen to the full webinar recording here, and find out more about our previous webinars here (we will soon provide the registration link for our next webinar).

If you would like to share your own experiences on using biodiversity and business platforms to influence business, or on other issues, please upload your own PANORAMA story using this link.