New White Paper: Fostering Corporate-Community Relations through Meaningful Engagement
SILVER SPRING, MD, October 14, 2021 – Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) offers a new white paper available for download today, Fostering Corporate-Community Relations through Meaningful Engagement. The white paper is sponsored by Stellantis and is available for free on our website.
As the current biodiversity and climate crises become more dire, and more opportunities for the private sector to address these issues arise, expectations for companies to act quickly, transparently and in conjunction with scientific consensus will continue to grow. Community engagement allows the public to observe, and often participate in, corporate and facility-level responses to these environmental threats, and helps companies establish, maintain or restore social license to operate.
Depending on a region’s environmental, cultural and socioeconomic contexts, engagement efforts can take many forms, from teaching youth how to help the wildlife in their backyards to promoting environmental equity by ensuring that a conservation project creates value for marginalized communities. Regardless of the approach taken, an awareness of community needs is key. To illustrate the breadth of options for community engagement, the case studies featured in the white paper represent many industries and regions, including:
- Bacardi-Martini USA: Puerto Rico – Cataño, Puerto Rico
- Boeing: Santa Susana Field Laboratory – California, U.S.A.
- CEMEX: Tepeaca – Puebla, Mexico
- Covia: Huntersville Office – North Carolina, U.S.A.
- Crestwood Midstream: FBIR Grassland Reclamation – North Dakota, U.S.A.
- Exelon Corporation: Nine Mile Point Nuclear Power Station – New York, U.S.A.
- General Motors: World Headquarters – Michigan, U.S.A.
- Ontario Power Generation: Western Waste Management Facility & Bruce Complex – Ontario, Canada
- Opel Automobile: Opel Manufacturing Poland Sp. z.o.o. Gliwice – Śląskie, Poland
- Waste Management: Twin Bridges Recycling & Disposal Facility – Indiana, U.S.A.
Sponsored by Stellantis, this white paper includes a forward from the company which states, “There is no question that corporations must coexist with local communities to enhance, lift up and support the neighborhoods in which they do business…We’re listening to our neighbors and working with them to improve the quality of life for people who live and work here.”
About Wildlife Habitat Council:
For 33 years, WHC has been promoting and certifying ecological stewardship action on corporate lands through partnerships and education. Since only 10-15% of the world’s land surface is protected, private lands provide an essential opportunity for restoring and protecting biodiversity. As the only international conservation NGO focused exclusively on the private sector, WHC provides a framework for voluntary conservation action on a wide variety of corporate lands. WHC’s corporate members represent some of the leading national and multinational corporations seeking to support sustainable ecosystems and the communities that surround them. These efforts have resulted in more than 1,000 certified programs across 47 states and 28 countries.
