Principle 10: Value for All Stakeholders (Item 10)
Sustainability is determined by an organization's ability to create
and deliver value for all stakeholders.
You should keep your stakeholders informed of your progress.
This is important so that they know that you have listened to them
and taken them seriously enough to do something about it. Keeping people
informed about what you are doing for them and what you have achieved
for them is a very important way to build perceptions of value and trust.
You need to communicate these results to the stakeholder groups in
a manner that is meaningful to them so as to provide them with details
about what you are doing on their behalf and how your efforts are progressing.
This information on actual performance allows all parties to negotiate from a position
of knowledge. This helps achieve a shared
understanding of the company's objectives and values and a shared understanding
of its Key Performance Indicators. Again, you should present your results
as trends and include comparisons with targets, competitors or best
in class companies.
Exactly what information you share with your stakeholder groups should
be negotiated with each group. There is obviously information that you
do not want your competitors to have. However, we suggest that the minimum
information you should supply is
- what you are doing for the stakeholder group – your activity
and investment
- the results you have achieved for them.
Stakeholders should be wary of companies that do not provide this information.
For example, just as investment is very often a lead indicator of future
profitability, lack of investment can be an indicator of reduced future
profitability.
 We believe that shareholders
(owners) should be kept informed of all significant investment decisions
for all stakeholder groups.
Although this is usually true for major capital investment in the company,
it is usually not true for the non-capital investment. We suggest that
investment in non-capital such as training and employee development,
knowledge acquisition, product and service development, innovation,
process improvement, work environment and knowledge, community safety
and infrastructure, alliance partnerships should be dealt with in the
same rigorous manner used for capital investment.
Owners (shareholders) should be informed when investment is carried
out, postponed or cancelled in any of them. Information about investment
in all of these is as important to shareholders as is any capital project.
They should be treated the same.
Although it may appear that the number of stakeholder groups making
a claim on the company's value chain has gradually increased, that is
not true. The claim has always been there. It is just that companies
have not always recognized the claim. Many still do not. However, the
better ones do.
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