46 Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 7, No.

1, 2013

The importance of stakeholder engagement

in managing corporate reputations

Anria S. van Zyl

Department of Accountancy,
Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences,
University of Stellenbosch,
Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa
Email: avanzyl@sun.ac.za

Abstract: It is becoming increasingly evident that corporations need to

communicate clearly with their larger stakeholder communities’ regarding the
risks faced by the corporation along with their strategies to mitigate these risks.
Stakeholder communities are also increasingly relying on social media to
obtain a better understanding of and to inform others regarding the costs and
externalities imposed on them by multinational corporations. The aim of this
paper is to highlight the risks posed to corporate reputations by self-organising
stakeholder activist groups and how a pro-active inclusive and transparent
stakeholder engagement process can counteract these risks.

Keywords: integrated reporting; stakeholder engagement; sustainability;

branding; corporate reputation; activism; greenwashing; blackwashing.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Van Zyl, A.S. (2013) ‘The
importance of stakeholder engagement in managing corporate reputations’,
Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.46–60.

Biographical notes: Anria S. van Zyl is a qualified Chartered Accountant

(CA(SA)), currently lecturing Information Systems at undergraduate level at
the University of Stellenbosch. She obtained a BAcc (Hons) degree, as well as
a Certificate in the Theory of Accounting, at the University of the Free State,
South Africa in 2001 and a Master’s degree in Computer Auditing from the
University of Stellenbosch in 2008. She is currently completing an MPhil
Environmental Management degree at the University of Stellenbosch.

1 Introduction: putting Earth back into the balance sheet

The value of dwindling natural resources and the cost of increasing

atmospheric pollution should surely be included in the price we are all paying
for what we buy and consume? At the moment, these costs often do not appear
in anyone’s books …. All of these costs, for which future generations will pay
dearly, are given nil values in company accounts.
Prince of Wales (2006)
The recent global financial crisis, corporate scandals, increased socio-economic inequality,
the growing evidence of resource constraints, climate change and changing expectations
regarding the roles and responsibilities of public and private organisations; coupled with

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 The importance of stakeholder engagement 47

diminished trust in the corporate sector and its leaders, highlights the need for
organisations to clearly communicate how these trends impact their activities, and how
their strategies aims to address these risks (IRC, 2011; Roberts et al., 2002). As a
possible solution to the current reporting crisis the King Code of Governance Principles
for South Africa 2009 (King III, 2009) recommended the implementation of ‘Integrated
Reporting’ as a key element of good corporate governance (King, 2011). Integrated
Reporting is now a listing requirement for the 450 companies listed on the Johannesburg
Stock Exchange (SAICA, 2010).
The recommendation by Judge Mervin King followed a 2008 change to the Danish
Financial Reporting Act in which the 1100 largest Danish companies were required to
include corporate sustainability factors in their annual financial reports (Eccles and
Krzus, 2010). Other countries with voluntary early adopters include: Spain, USA, Brazil,
Australia, the UK and China (Eccles and Krzus, 2010).
Integrated reporting highlights the relationship between financial and non-financial
performance and the extent to which the financial performance for shareholders (profits
and dividends) imposes costs and externalities on other stakeholders, in the short-,
medium- and long-term. The resulting data requirement of producing these reports,
means that companies are required to adopt a more sustainable business strategy, taking
into account environmental, social, financial and governance performance, and that it has
be integrated into the basic business processes. Integrated external reporting is
impossible without sustainable internal management strategies (Eccles and Krzus, 2010;
King, 2011; Perkins, 2010).
For integrated reporting to be successful it relies on interactive communication with
key stakeholders (King, 2011). Interactive and continual communication between a
company, acting as corporate citizen, and his key stakeholders increases the company’s
knowledge of his stakeholder’s interests and expectations (Eccles and Krzus 2010; King,
2011; Roberts et al., 2002). Stakeholders can be defined as: “entities or individuals that
can reasonably be expected to be significantly affected by the organisation’s activities,
products and services, and whose actions can reasonably be expected to affect the
organisation’s ability to successfully implement its strategy and achieve its objectives”
(GRI, 2007; IRC, 2011).
Integrated reporting is only one part of the organisation’s communication activities
with its stakeholders (IRC, 2011). Clay Shirky noted that all businesses are media
businesses, because they rely on managing the communication of information with
employees and the world (Shirky, 2008). The emergence of integrated reporting
highlights the new trend towards transparency (Eccles and Krzus, 2010; Tapscott and
Williams 2006).
Transparency requires companies to be willing to disclose information regarding the
way they conduct their business and to listen and react to criticism (Sini, 2009; Eccles
and Krzus, 2010). Companies who fail to communicate with their stakeholders risks
damaging their reputations and may not survive in the long term (Shirky, 2008; Tapscott
and Williams, 2006).
Communication networks, Web2.0 and the Internet affect the scale in which
companies have to manage their reputations. A stakeholder’s opinion of a company is no
longer defined by his or her direct interaction with a company or to what happens in their
local neighbourhood or community, but also now reflects activities taking place globally.
The new electronic tools offered by Web2.0, social networking and social media
allow stakeholders to self-organise, communicate with others and investigate corporate
48 A.S. van Zyl

misconduct (Roberts et al., 2002; Tapscott, 2010; Tapscott and Williams, 2006; van Zyl,
2009). It is increasingly important for companies to become sustainable and good
corporate and social citizens, failure to do so can hurt the company financially, in the
form of regulatory fines and lawsuits, and reputationally, in the form of negative media
attention and stakeholder activism (Eccles and Krzus, 2010).

2 Methodology and questions

The aim of this essay is threefold: Firstly the paper aims to increase awareness among
investors and business leaders regarding the risks posed by emergent social networking
tools and platforms, and the increasing importance of a pro-active approach to reputation
management. Multinational corporations can no longer rely on distance to conceal
unacceptable behaviour and abuses from their shareholders and stakeholders in other
countries.
In order to understand whether online stakeholder communities can impact corporate
behaviour, examples of online activism where social media was used to inform the larger
stakeholder community of environmental issues associated with global organisations will
be examined. The information used in the case studies was obtained by performing
limited key word searches using Google, in order to illustrate the information available to
shareholders with limited means of communication and interaction with global brands.
The information available was verified with peer reviewed research as applicable and
information available on the specific corporate websites. In order to determine the impact
and efficacy of the stakeholder activities a link between these activities and the resulting
corporate behavioural changes, if any, will also be discussed. Case study three illustrates
the role of stakeholders in affecting the relationships between governments and
multinational organisations.
Secondly the paper aims to highlight the risks of blackwashing by online
communities, thereby emphasising the importance of implementing a transparent and
inclusive stakeholder engagement process. This process is also important to counteract
claims of greenwashing and to increase trust in corporate communications.
One of the major weaknesses of the previous versions of sustainability reporting was
that companies could downplay or ignore the concerns of some stakeholders groups
(Gray and Bebbington, 2007) and use the report to bolster the company’s image in the
eyes of less informed investors and shareholders. To address the risk of being selective in
identifying material issues when compiling integrated reports, organisations should
explain, as part of the report, why issues that are often considered relevant by some
stakeholders has not been identified as material. Items are material if its inclusion or
exclusion could substantively influence the assessments and decisions of the organisation
or its stakeholders (IRC, 2011).
Lastly the paper aims to challenge academics and scientists, specifically Conservation
Biologists, to become active members of online stakeholder communities, and to take
responsibility for the manner in which their research results are disseminated and used
to counteract the risks of it being misused, either by online stakeholder groups, for
blackwashing, or by corporations, in greenwashing.
 The importance of stakeholder engagement 49

3 Case study 1: Green Gold – Indonesian palm oil

Without better stewardship, the phenomenal growth of the palm oil industry
could spell disaster for local communities, biodiversity, and climate change as
palm plantations encroach further and further into forested areas.
Scott Poynton (SustainableBusiness, 2011)
Palm oil production is increasing by an estimated 9% per year, most of the expansion has
occurred in Indonesia and Malaysia (Brown and Jacobson, 2005; Sustainable Business,
2011). Together these regions accounts for 86% of global production (Koh and Wilcove,
2007; Fergione et al., 2008). The increased production has been prompted by expanding
biofuel markets in the West, and an increased use in consumer and commercial products:
cosmetics, cooking oils, food additives and industrial lubricants (Fitzherbert et al., 2008;
Fergione et al., 2008; Koh and Wilcove, 2007; SustainableBusiness, 2011).
The rainforests of Indonesia contain high concentrations of endemic or rare species.
To date, four vascular plants species and three mammal species in Malaysia and
Indonesia have been listed as ‘extinct’ or ‘extinct in the wild’. An estimated 146 species
(21.9%) of mostly endemic mammals in Indonesia are listed as threatened (Koh and
Wilcove, 2007, 2008).
The palm oil plantations themselves have a negative impact on biodiversity, as they
support few species of conservation importance, and effect biodiversity in adjacent
habitats through fragmentation and edge effects. Palm plantations hinder migration
patterns and block travel corridors, as animals venturing into the plantations are often
killed by workers (Brown and Jacobson, 2005; Fitzherbert et al., 2008; Sandler et al.,
2007).
Other negative environmental impacts associated with palm oil production include:
 increased hunting and poaching,
 increased alien invasive species,
 soil erosion due to initial land clearance leading to sedimentation of rivers,
 water pollution from plantations, mills and factories and
 the conversion of rainforest and peat lands releases CO2 through slash and burn
practices and microbial decomposition of organic carbon stored in plant biomass
and soils.
The rapid expansion of oil palm crops in Indonesia has led to aggressive media
campaigns lobbying for the boycott of palm oil products by several non-governmental
organisations (Koh and Wilcove, 2007).
Consumer concern lead to the formation of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
(RSPO) in 2003, by palm oil producers, the World Wildlife Fund, citizen groups and
producers of products containing palm oil such as Unilever (Brown and Jacobson 2005;
Fitzherbert et al., 2008; Sandler et al., 2007). The RSPO’s goal was to regulate and create
a sustainable palm oil industry through third-party certification and auditing (Fitzherbert
et al., 2008; Sandler et al., 2007)
In 2008 Greenpeace launched a successful viral campaign against Unilever, with the
release of their ‘onslaughter(er)’ video clip a parody Unilever’s ‘onslaught’ campaign.
Greenpeace linked the destruction of the Indonesian rainforest to Unilever’s Dove
50 A.S. van Zyl

products (Steve, 2008). Two weeks after the release of the video, Unilever CEO Patrick
Cescau announced Unilever’s intention to have all of its palm oil certified sustainable by
2015 (Unilever, 2008).
On 11 December 2009 Unilever reported that “it has decided to suspend all future
purchases of palm oil from the Indonesian company PT Smart, part of the Sinar Mas
group [and member of the RSPO], until such time as they can provide verifiable proof
that none of their plantations are contributing to the destruction of high conservation
value forests and expanding onto peat lands.” This announcement followed an extensive
audit conducted by Unilever on all its major suppliers (Unilever, 2009a) and pre-empted
the release of a Greenpeace report on the Sinar Mas group’s environmental practices
(Duff, 2009; Unilever, 2009b).
During March 2010 Greenpeace launched a campaign against Nestlé for using palm
oil supplied by Sinar Mas (Dunn, 2010). The campaign utilised email spamming attacks
against Nestlé, spreading campaign messages using Facebook, Twitter and other social
media profiles. The activists posted messages on Nestlé fan pages and encouraged
supporters to change their profile pictures to the ‘killer’ logo (a parody of the Nestlé Kit
Kat logo) (Greenpeace, 2010).
On 19 March 2010 Nestlé was accused of online censorship after the removal of a
viral video ‘Have a break?’ from YouTube (Dunn, 2010; Greenpeace, 2010; White,
2010). This lead to the viral spread of the video to several other social media sites, and
resulted in a reported 1.5 million views. During the Nestlé Annual General Meeting on
15 April 2010 Twitter was used the sent messages to shareholders and a fake Wi-Fi
network was set up to automatically redirect internet traffic to the greenpeace.org/kitkat
webpage (Greenpeace, 2010).
After the April 2010 Annual General Meeting Nestlé announced joining the
RSPO and the cancellation of their contract with Sinar Mas (Brabeck-Letmathe, 2010;
Nestlé, 2010). Nestlé also announced a partnership with the Geneva-based non-profit
organisation, The Forest Trust (TFT) to establish Responsible Sourcing Guidelines and to
ensure that the company do not have a deforestation footprint (Nestlé, 2010).
On 9 February 2011, following the cancellation of its contracts with Unilever and
Nestlé, Golden Afri-Resources Limited (GAR) and its subsidiaries including PT SMART
Tpk and Sinar Mas, announced its commitment to the conservation of Indonesian carbon-
rich forests and peat lands. GAR entered into a partnership with TFT to establish a Forest
Conservation Policy. TFT were also charged with ensuring that existing plantations do
not contribute to further destruction of forests, and to ensure the preservation of
biodiversity, landscapes, and local livelihoods (GAR, 2011; SustainableBusiness, 2011).

4 Case study 2: opening a can of truth – the tuna industry

Killed alongside the shipjack tuna that finds itself in your tin is almost the
entire cast list of Finding Nemo.
Charles Clover (Greenpeace, 2011a)
‘Dolphin friendly’ labelling became popular in the UK in the early 1990s. Dolphin safe
tuna was developed to address the harvesting practises employed in the East Tropical
Pacific (ETP) region, in which dolphin schools were targeted by yellowfin fishing boats
using purse seine nets. The dolphin pods were captured in the nets along with yellowfin
tuna (Brown, 2005; Greenpeace, 2011a).
 The importance of stakeholder engagement 51

The dolphin-safe scheme in the UK was preventative in nature, and aimed to ensure
that dolphin-un-safe tuna did not enter the market. During that period virtually all canned
tuna sold in the UK contained shipjack tuna and were not associated with the fishing
practices used in the ETP (Brown, 2005).
In order to minimise the risks of dolphins being caught and killed the use of fish
aggregation devices (FADs) were promoted in the ETP. FADs are floating objects, made
of bamboo or other natural materials, and are often equipped with satellite-linked sonar
devices. These floating objects are deployed in the open ocean and attract shoals of tuna
(Greenpeace, 2011a; Princes, 2011a).
FADs are increasingly being adopted by fishing fleets in other oceans, and today the
majority of tinned tuna worldwide is caught through purse seining around FADs
(Greenpeace, 2011a). The FADs are not discriminate and juvenile tuna along with other
non-target species including top predators such as sharks and rays, as well as rare and
endangered sea turtles can also be attracted and caught in the purse seine nets
(Greenpeace, 2011a; Princes, 2011a).
In August 2008 Greenpeace released their first briefing paper on the topic, Tinned
Tuna’s Hidden Catch (Greenpeace, 2008), in which they accused top selling UK brands
such as John West and Princes of not ensuring that their tinned tuna is caught using
sustainable methods (Joss, 2008).
On 15 October 2010 Greenpeace started an email spamming campaign against
Princes to demand that they readdress their sustainable fisheries policy. Princes was
accused of hiding behind its “dolphin friendly” labelling at the cost of other marine
species (Willie, 2010). Princes, owned by the Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation, is
estimated to have a 37% share of the UK tinned tuna market (Derbyshire, 2011).
With the release of Greenpeace’s second briefing paper, Tinned Tuna’s Secret Catch
(Greenpeace, 2011a) during January 2011, Princes tinned tuna appeared joint last, with
Tesco, in the name and shame list called the Tuna League Table (Greenpeace, 2011a).
Shortly after the release of the paper Greenpeace made an official complaint at the
Office of Fair Trading in which Princes was accused of misleading the public and
greenwashing by printing ‘Princes is fully committed to fishing methods which protect
the marine environment and marine life’ on their tins. Greenpeace contended that Princes
fishing methods resulted in large quantities of bycatch and that they are selling bigeye
and yellowfin tuna, which are listed in the IUCN red list (American Albacore, 2011;
Derbyshire, 2011; Jamie, 2011a; Princes, 2011b). Princes agreed to amend their labels
but planned to keep the “Dolphin friendly” logo on its tins (American Albacore, 2011)
During the next three months Greenpeace continued their email spamming campaign,
with an estimated 75,000 emails having been sent by supporters up until February.
Supporters were encouraged to create a new advertising slogan for Princes on Twitter,
and to boycott Princes products. The online campaign was supported by a documentary
series, Hugh’s Fish Fight, broadcasted on Channel 4 and protests at Princes UK
headquarters (Jamie, 2011a; b). During this time the Charles Clover documentary film,
The End of the Line, was also released which helped to increase stakeholder awareness
(Greenpeace, 2011a).
On 21 March 2011 Princes released a statement in which they announced an action
plan to source all its tuna from suppliers using FAD-free methods, such as pole and line,
by the end of 2014 (Fishupdate.com, 2011; Princes, 2011a). The company also pledged
their commitment to the creation of a Pacific Commons marine reserve (Princes, 2011a).
52 A.S. van Zyl

5 Case study 3: the Mabira Forest giveaway

On the 9th of August 2006, a local Ugandan activist group, Greenwatch, reported that the
Government was in the process of giving away a third of the Mabira forest to the Metha
Group of Companies (Greenwatch, 2006a).
On 2 September 2006, President Yoweri Museveni defended the allocation of Mabira
Forestry land to the Indian owned, Metha group of companies, stating that it would be
possible to move the forest, but that it would be difficult to relocate the Lugazi sugar
factory (Etukuri, 2006; Kawera, n.d.). A spokesperson for The Sugar Corporation of
Uganda Limited (SCOUL), a subsidiary of the Metha Group, defended the request by
stating that the portion of the requested forest was heavily degraded and of little
environmental value (Howden, 2007; Tenywa and Mugisha, 2006). The Paper Mulberry
and Ficus trees, described as being degraded forests, were identified by forestry officials
as nursing trees providing cover for the regeneration of native tree species after damage
caused by encroaching SCOUL workers (Tenywa and Mugisha, 2006; Tenywa, 2007).
Mabira forest, located near Uganda’s capital Kampala, is a 300 km2 remnant of
tropical lowland forest (Naidoo and Adamowicz, 2005). The forest is home to a number
of endangered and rare butterfly-, moth-, bird- and tree species (Baranga, 2007;
Muramira, 2001). Villagers rely on the forest products, such as fuel wood, fruit, wild
game, honey, medicinal herbs and water (Baranga, 2007; Naidoo and Adamowicz, 2005;
Devine, 2004; WRM, 2007). Local industries collect timber and poles, and there is an
established eco-tourism industry (Naidoo and Adamowicz, 2005). The forest also affords
Uganda the opportunity to sell carbon credits (Baranga, 2007), and has been identified as
an important watershed, influencing the health and volume of Lake Victoria (Howden,
2007; Kawera, n.d.; Tenywa, 2008).
The New Vision newspaper reported during March of 2007 on a leaked letter in which
the Environmental minister Maria Mutagamba was ordered by the Prime Minister Apolo
Nsibambi to prepare a Cabinet paper asking for permission to degazette part of Mabira
Forest. The report lead too campaigns from civil society and environmental groups to
save Mabira Forest and boycott SCOUL sugar (Tenywa, 2007).
The campaign utilised electronic and print media, press conferences, petitions,
banners, posters, flyers and bumper stickers to increase awareness among civilians. A
group of NGO’s also filed a petition in the High Court to prevent the degazetting of the
Mabira and Butamira Forest (Greenwatch, 2007a).
Although a website, savemabira.petitiontime.com (Greenwatch, 2007b), emails
(Greenwatch, 2007a), blogs (Namugoji, 2008) and viral video’s (http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v-ZC58c$p52Jo) were used during the campaign, the success thereof was
undermined by expensive and limited Internet coverage. A September 2007 Internet
usage survey indicated that Uganda only have 750,000 internet users (Namugoji, 2008).
The Environmental Alert, Greenwatch, Advocate Coalition for Development and
the Environment and other environmental groups, successfully used another social
networking tool made possible by the expansion of cell phone usage in rural and urban
Africa, namely text messaging or short message services (SMS) (Greenwatch, 2007a;
2007b; Namugoji, 2008). The SMS campaign asked recipients to boycott Lugazi sugar
and become more actively involved. The messages focused on the importance of the
forest as watershed and its role in Global Warming (BBC NEWS, 2007; Greenwatch,
2007b; Todd, 2007).
 The importance of stakeholder engagement 53

On 12 May 2007 a peaceful demonstration in Kampala turned violent and at least

three people were killed, including an Indian national (BBC NEWS, 2007; Magara, 2010;
Tebajjukira, 2009; WRM, 2007). On 22 May 2007 the Government announced that they
will not approve the cabinet decision to allocate part of the forest to the Metha Group
(Magara, 2010; WRM, 2007).

6 The risks of greenwashing and blackwashing

Although we’re getting a lot more good information via the Internet, we’re also
getting a lot more bad information. On the Internet, we constantly live in a
twilight between fact and fiction. We’re often exposed to information that we
can’t entirely trust.
Solove (2007, p.35)
The above three examples show the power and importance of armchair stakeholder
activism in addressing corporate behaviour. Social tools remove the obstacles that would
have prevented participation in activist activities due to geographical space and different
time zones, it also does not require huge commitments, either financial, time or energy
and people can participate by just forwarding an email or text message or by changing a
profile picture.
These emergent Web2.0 tools, together with the popularity of Social Networking 2.0
(van Zyl, 2009), aided by plummeting computing and collaboration costs (Tapscott and
Williams, 2006) also increases the risk of misinformation campaigns orchestrated by
both corporations and environmental groups (Butler, 2009b; van Zyl, 2010). These
activities are threatening to undermine legitimate efforts to conserve biodiversity and
reduce environmental degradation (Butler, 2009b) by creating consumer apathy and by
eroding public trust (Koh et al., 2010; Watkins, 2008).
‘Greenwashing’ describes public relations activities, especially by organisations in
which:
 the environmental benefits of a product or service is overstated (Watkins, 2008) or
 activities were attention is deflected away from the continued pursuit of
environmentally destructive activities (Koh et al., 2010).
One of the examples of greenwashing by organisations and industries include the
campaign by the Palm Oil industry, led by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) who
has actively tried to improve consumer perceptions regarding the sustainability and
environmental friendliness of Palm Oil Plantations. These activities included television
advertisements, online videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCp9y6_AjaI&) and
reports in which claims, lacking scientific support, are made that: “palm plantations
improve biodiversity”, these plantations are “…more effective than rain forests in serving
as carbon sinks…” and that they “…throw a protective green canopy over the
environment” (Koh et al., 2010). As seen in case study 1 these views are not supported
by scientists who have published at length on the negative environmental impacts
associated with palm oil production.
A second example of greenwashing can be found in case study 2, were fisheries use
the “Dolphin Friendly” logo, despite using fishing methods leading to huge amounts of
bycatch, which includes predators such as sharks and rays (Jamie, 2011).
54 A.S. van Zyl

In the rapidly changing media and online environment, activist tactics are also
evolving (Reber and Kim, 2006) and while exaggerated claims and hyperbole by some
environmentalists and activists (Koh et al., 2010) are not new, the speed and scale of
dissemination of these claims increased exponentially. Many online activists utilise viral
drivers to disseminate information, as the name suggests, once the idea is released, the
spread of these ideas and claims across the globe cannot be controlled or recalled (Cripe
and Weckerle, 2009; Shirky, 2008).
The use of unverified or misleading accusations to raise the profile of environmental
debates is referred to as “Blackwashing” (Koh et al., 2010). Even though activists
organisations can often serve as expert sources for information on topics (Reber and
Kim, 2006), the nature of viral campaigns such as online videos, Twitter updates and
Facebook status reports often require activists to distil the message into a short and
controversial punch line, which can easily be taken out of context by the general public
and media outlets who are “woefully ignorant about science” (Brussard and Tull, 2007).
Examples of these exaggerated claims included reports made by the Rainforest
Action Network, during the same time as the Greenpeace campaign discussed in case
study 1 that “… orangutans are predicted to become extinct as early as 2011” (Koh et al.,
2010).
These aggressive campaigns can be useful tools to motivate core stakeholders and to
overcome environmental apathy, but can undermine consumer trust in valid efforts to
improve industry sustainability and in certified products in general, thus undermining
environmental and social benefits that could have been achieved (Butler, 2009a;
Hollenbeck and Zinkhan, 2006; Koh et al. 2010; Tangley, 1997).
The blogosphere and online communities are often credited with having an efficient
error-correction mechanism, and that errors and misinformation can be corrected by the
online communities almost immediately (Solove, 2007; van Zyl, 2009). The technology
of Web2.0 and the mind-set of users encourage anyone who have access, to challenge
and modify user generated content (Cripe and Weckerle, 2009). Erroneous and bad
information can however persist if there are no community members willing to protect
an online community from misinformation (Cripe and Weckerle, 2009; Shirky, 2008;
van Zyl, 2010).

7 The important role of academics and scientist as stakeholder

Scientists, especially conservation biologists who understand the context of

environmental problems and the concerns of stakeholder groups, have the responsibility
to critically assess claims made by both activists and companies and to ensure that “an
accurate picture emerges”, thus providing an independent auditing mechanism (Butler,
2009b; Fitzherbert et al., 2008; Koh and Wilcove, 2008; Sandler et al., 2007).
The methods of communication and dissemination of scientific results should include
methods that are accessible to the general public, organisations and activist groups
(Meffe et al., 1997), and should consider that not all stakeholders might necessarily have
access to the internet. To avoid the risks that scientific findings can be misinterpreted or
misused scientists should become actively involved in the dissemination of their results
(Meffe et al., 1997).
 The importance of stakeholder engagement 55

When writing journal articles, researchers should make a point of identifying the
target audience and explaining the conservation implications in terms that are easily
understood by the people who should be interested in, and who should be using the
information (Brussard and Tull, 2007; Tangley, 1997).
Due to the nature of environmental and conservation problems and needs of
businesses to become more sustainable the solutions required is more interdisciplinary in
nature and conservation biologists should become more actively involved in the creation
and maintenance of online communities and the maintenance of knowledge repositories
(van Zyl, 2009). Web 2.0 and Social Networking applications are lowering the costs
of collaboration and content sharing. The ability of these tools to allow scientists,
stakeholders, activists and business to self-organise into networks and communities
around shared interests and concerns offers a unique opportunity to find, retrieve, sort,
evaluate and filter the global human knowledge base (Tapscott and Williams, 2006).

8 Conclusion: the importance of pro-active stakeholder

engagement with online stakeholder communities

The integrated reporting process will require business and stakeholders to have access
to a broad knowledge base including an understanding of ecosystem services, the
importance of biodiversity conservation and other environmental issues. It is important
for conservation biologists to be willing to talk about their research and areas of expertise
with stakeholders and business leaders (Brussard and Tull, 2007).
The challenges business, stakeholders and conservation biologists face is not the
inability to create information. The challenges lies in creating relevant information and to
ensure that the information is available by the right group of people when they needed it,
so that they can make the best decisions based on the current best scientific knowledge
available (Brussard and Tull, 2007; Cripe and Weckerle, 2009). This will require
conservation biologists to view themselves as stakeholders and demand that they are
heard during the integrated reporting process.
Stakeholder activism can impact corporate behaviour. Activist groups have shown
that they can effectively utilise emergent Web2.0, Social Networking and cell phone
technologies to mobilise stakeholder communities.
The new integrated reporting framework relies heavily on continual communication
with stakeholders and requires companies to disclose the steps they have taken to insure
that all stakeholder groups are consulted and that all their concerns have been noted and
addressed. Stakeholder awareness and knowledge are increasing due to the accessibility
of online information and concerns are likely to increase, especially regarding issues of
limited resources and human rights. Organisations will have to actively manage their
reputations through tools such as integrated reporting.
In order to avoid the risks of greenwashing and blackwashing integrated reporting
will have to be based on sound science, honesty and transparency (Watkins, 2008).
It is therefore important that all members of civil society, especially conservation
biologists and other scientists work together and take personal responsibility to ensure
that integrated reporting becomes a social movement and embedded in consumer and
corporate culture (Eccles and Krzus, 2010).
56 A.S. van Zyl

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