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Stakeholder Engagement
Alcoa does not exist in a vacuum. We are the source of economic, social, and environmental effects not only in the workplace but also externally. In turn, we are affected by the demands and actions of our customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, neighbors, various levels of government and government agencies, the communities in which we operate, and others.
In today’s language, if groups or individuals knowingly or unknowingly have a relationship with us, they are known as stakeholders. They all exist and function within complex formal or informal relationships and have the capacity to affect the activities associated with our operations.
Stability within our relationships with stakeholders is a primary objective of our stakeholder engagement. Pursuit of this stability is an essential, desirable, rewarding, but often challenging aspect of modern business.
Typically, relationships closer to the core activities of our business—customers, suppliers, employees, and shareholders, for example—all have formalized, often contractual, and in some cases legally mandated channels for engagement.
Less formal definition exists in the area of external or so-called community-based stakeholder engagement. However, all relationships depend on stability to achieve sustained, equitable outcomes. Generally, such outcomes are more readily identified and achieved through continuing dialogue and, in the most productive relationships, active partnerships.
Stakeholder Identification
“The community” doesn’t exist, at least not in the sense that it is a monolithic entity. Rather, what exists is a rich combination of individual people with individual needs and perspectives who coalesce, disperse, and re-coalesce as interests dictate.
For example, pro- and anti-development groups might unite in support of fundraising for disease prevention research. Religious groups might unite in support of freedom of speech, and then retire to worship within the doctrine of their respective faiths. Companies might join forces with each other and other interest groups in development of shared local education and training facilities, and then resume vigorous and aggressive competition against each other to attract the talent emerging from those facilities. Unions and companies might work closely together to advocate for local development and job creation, and then take opposing positions on aspects of workplace relations and work design.
These are the workings of a normal, healthy, democratic society. To be sustainable, Alcoa must be able to operate within the complexity that this creates.
Any pair of individual stakeholders can be seen to be occupying a dynamic continuum ranging from conflict to cooperation. From a midpoint of neutrality, relative positions on this continuum can change swiftly and dramatically. Given the sudden prospect of significant change, alliances can quickly split or form. There are always exceptions, but as a general operating principle, stability—and therefore the most opportunity for making mutually beneficial gains—lies in cooperation. Instability, with its attendant damage and costs, exists in infinite quantities when stakeholders resort to conflict.
Consequently, the first step toward meaningful stakeholder engagement is to actively seek cooperative activity from those who best represent the varying viewpoints.
Leaders of formally constituted institutions, agencies, and organizations are readily identifiable. Confirmation of their mandate to represent their respective constituents is also readily available.
This task becomes more difficult in the presence of informal groupings, non-governmental organizations with indistinct memberships, and expressions of self-proclaimed leadership. Visibility of such individuals or groups within the media can be helpful in identifying particular stakeholders, but it is an unreliable gauge of their influence and legitimacy within society at large. We therefore initiate an extensive and continuing search for as broad a range of individual stakeholders as possible throughout the life of an operating facility.
As one means of addressing the question of representation, we initiate and welcome invitations to join programs designed to build community capacity. To be effective and to build constructive relationships between the broadest possible spectrum of stakeholders, such programs require the collaborative participation of the three pillars of society: government, industry, and community. Each comes into the partnership with often dramatically different perspectives, but, to be effective, they must be committed to working together to clarify and prioritize the issues, coordinate and leverage resources, apply assistance where it is needed most, and share responsibility for outcomes and success.
Stakeholder Engagement
As different as we all are, diverse human societies and cultures can be surprisingly similar in the expectations they place on the world around us.
Regardless of the starting point, most people seek some level of improvement in their standard of living, aspiring to live in a clean and healthy environment and rest easily in an atmosphere of physical and emotional safety. These are elements of common self-interest and, taken collectively, they can be used to help frame an appropriate approach for stakeholder engagement in almost any given culture.
But there are pitfalls. Identical processes, designed simply to identify stakeholders and create the opportunity for dialogue to begin, can have dramatically different outcomes when followed in distinctly different socio-political environments.
An example of this is the stakeholder engagement we undertook when studying the feasibility of constructing an aluminum smelter in both Trinidad and Greenland. In Trinidad, the issue quickly became politicized and resulted in disruptive community meetings—some of it violent. This quickly overshadowed project support from other sectors.
Using a similar stakeholder engagement process in Greenland, we have conducted meaningful dialogue with the citizens of the three communities that are helping us in site selection. Two series of public meetings about the project were well-attended, respectful, and productive.
In 2007, we continued to develop our internal and external stakeholder engagement processes with the Iceland Sustainability Initiative serving as a model in our training programs and with our community advisory boards throughout the world. The emphasis is on seeking earlier input from our stakeholders in the communities where we operate—not just for our growth projects, but also for existing plant upgrades, expansions, and ongoing activities. Additional examples of our global engagement can be found in the Community Consultation section.
While the issues raised by stakeholders vary from community to community, there are some common themes. These include job creation, investment in the community, and the impact of Alcoa’s operations on the environment and community health.
We recognize that we will continue to confront the challenge of involving disparate stakeholder groups in meaningful dialogue. There are few hard and fast rules, little black and white, and an abundance of gray areas. This demands patience, persistence, flexibility, tolerance, and, above all, integrity and a commitment to mutually beneficial outcomes from both us and our stakeholders.
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List of Stakeholders
View a partial list of stakeholders Alcoa consulted, listened to, or partnered with in 2007. go
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