Why engage stakeholders?

Stakeholder engagement is at the core of due diligence for responsible business conduct. By consulting your key stakeholders, you will most likely get access to information no social audit or self-assessment questionnaire will provide. You will be able to make informed decisions and identify collaborative ways to address complex issues in your supply chain.

A Practical tool for SMEs

The guide “Engaging stakeholders in due diligence: A beginner’s roadmap for small and medium sized companies (SME’s)” is aimed at small and medium sized companies (SMEs) with international supply chains. It is designed to improve companies’ due diligence for responsible business conduct, by setting out how to identify key stakeholders and better engage with them – A beginner’s roadmap!

This roadmap is the result of consultation with SMEs, a number of stakeholders in India and China and with Norwegian civil society organisations and is accompanied by specific tools for stakeholder engagement in China and India. JETI members may access these online, through their respective organisation.

Key in Due diligence

Stakeholder engagement is a ‘key component of the due diligence process’, it is a cross-cutting action with relevance to all stages of due diligence. Companies can and should engage with stakeholders throughout all stages of the due diligence process.

The guide “Engaging stakeholders in due diligence: A beginner’s roadmap for small and medium sized companies (SME’s)” is divided into six sub-chapters, based on OECD’s model for due diligence for responsible business conduct (2018) and UNGP. It has an overview over key stakeholders and list of why and how to engage. The graphic below provides an overview of the six sub-chapters, the due diligence stages across which stakeholders should be involved.