10 lessons on business-NGO partnerships

Interesting piece by Peter Asmus in Ethical Corporation. 10 years on, he looks back to an early example of “stakeholder engagement” when Mitsubishi executives sat down with the environmentalist Rainforest Action Network, who were threatening a boycott. In NGO engagement and partnerships – Ten lessons for corporations Asmus talks to the players and draws out a set of lessons for corporations with the benefit of a decade's perspective. Although some may seem obvious, the lessons do help structure the details of a process that produced ground breaking results and helped catalyze broader moves towards sustainable forestry. Billed as lessons for corporations, most are equally important reading for NGOs, such as #7 to resist the urge to demonize the other side. Basic instincts are not always best.