Delivering sustainability and social impact through community engagement. A people-centred approach to ESG. Report of Paris Roundtable, September 2023

The Paris Roundtable, organized by LSE IDEAS and ESSEC Business School, brought together companies, investors, policymakers, and standard-setting bodies to identify best practices and policies for achieving positive social impacts and sustainability goals through investments and operations across the supply and value chain and particularly at local level in fragile and volatile environments.

New European legislation on sustainability reporting, mandatory human rights due diligence, and increased attention by financial markets and rating agencies on the social impacts of business have increased pressure on companies to provide information about their social footprint, including in locations where they may have little direct representation. The Just Transition agenda includes a social dimension to action on net zero and climate change agendas.

The two-day roundtable sought to discuss how engagement with communities and local stakeholders could be made more effective and useful for companies and investors; how accurate and authentic information could be integrated into reporting, and address risk and opportunity locally, and the kind of support companies and investors need to adapt to new regulatory and public demands on social impact.

LSE IDEAS' study for KPSRL, which was presented during the Roundtable, identifies that most companies don’t measure positive social impacts; legislation and practice are predominantly shaped by human rights norms so there is a lack of guidance on capturing positive impacts, or operationalizing stakeholder engagement particularly in difficult settings where there is no Rule of Law. The study examined the value of local engagement, the kinds of indicators of successful engagement and how this might fit with existing standards, noting that it is difficult to transfer the different frameworks and standards into measurement practices consistent with strong local engagement.