Stakeholder relationships

Stakehholder relationships

In the past, ABB has not formally defined groups of stakeholders beyond those with which it has a direct financial relationship: namely, customers and suppliers, employees and shareholders.

More recently, the debate on globalization has focused corporations’ attention on their responsibilities to the broader community. ABB has responded in both formal and informal ways, engaging in dialogues with a variety of interest groups.

In February 2001, ABB launched its social policy. The first and fundamental principle of this policy commits ABB to open dialogue with stakeholders, to respond to their concerns and to contribute, as far as we can, to improving economic, environmental and social conditions.

First formal dialogue
The social policy also provided the first opportunity to attempt a group-wide, systematic opening of dialogue – about the social policy itself.

At the end of January 2001, ABB sites in 43 countries were invited to participate; 34 had been able to do so by the end of the year and 11 of these had progressed to a second round of dialogue.

ABB set the agenda. Its specific aims were:

1. To gather comments from stakeholders on the policy, as input for further development
2. To help establish a clear plan for implementing the policy
3. To develop our social reporting mechanisms, as well as suitable indicators to measure performance against each of the policy’s principles.

The dialogue itself and its results are reported in detail in the section Stakeholder dialogue. Briefly, a wide variety of stakeholders took part and the quality of the output was high.

Broadening the scope
Our positive first experience with such wide-scale stakeholder consultation has made us keen to do more. During 2002, we have been holding similar round-table discussions on ABB’s policies and strategies relating to environmental management and common efforts. We see this process developing into ongoing dialogue on a regular basis to address concerns, based on a moving agenda of sustainability issues of mutual interest to the stakeholders involved.

The development of specific guidelines and indicators will be entrusted to specially constituted task forces, acting on the output of these discussions. The output will feed back into the revision process for our social and environmental policies. The overall process is shown in a diagram.

Ensuring success
We are committed to regular dialogue and to developing meaningful relationships with our stakeholders.

One of our top priorities this year will be to prove this commitment by dealing effectively and promptly, at all levels, with the action points that arise from these discussions. These dialogues can grow and flourish only if all participants see their expectations being met.

Sustainability Advisory Board
Since its formation in 1992, the members of ABB’s Sustainability Advisory Board have been a highly experienced and influential group of stakeholders and stakeholder representatives.

The board is a panel of independent experts, chaired by ABB’s CEO, which meets two or three times a year to offer objective advice and opinions on ABB’s sustainability management program.

In 2001, the board was dissolved and will be reconstituted in 2002 to include new members with an expanded range of skills and experience in the environmental, social and economic fields. This will enable it to play an important role in ABB’s management of its broader sustainability performance.