ABSTRACT
Compliance with the law is step one on the path towards improving sustainability performance. It is quite common for organisations to commit to becoming more sustainable without ever really having a full appreciation of their local, national and international legal responsibilities. If compliance with the law is the first step on the path towards improved sustainability, then stakeholder engagement is the path's foundation. All organisations will be involved in stakeholder engagement in one form or another. Customers may be engaged via market research and opinion polls, investors may be engaged through corporate reporting and briefings, employees may be engaged through surveys or worker forums, and there may even be forums for specialist stakeholders on specific topics. Once finalised and endorsed by top management sustainability vision and strategy should provide organisation with a roadmap of what it wants to achieve by when.
