CONSENSUS BUILDING
Building a global coalition to end chemical pollution in the ocean
The challenge:
Bring stakeholders with competing agendas together on a tough global issue
Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation want to reframe the discourse around ocean pollution from a focus on plastics to a broader dialogue which includes chemicals and other contaminants. They launched an evidence-based initiative, Back to Blue, and asked us to spearhead stakeholder engagement and content strategy for the multi-year global initiative.
Our solution:
An integrated stakeholder engagement strategy across teams and timezones
In collaboration with a governance expert, we benchmarked corporate governance policies, mandates and disclosure patterns to identify a market baseline. We interviewed experts and practitioners to uncover off-the-record governance issues on the horizon. We conducted a regulatory sweep to identify the ESG trends on regulators’ watch list. As well as examining corporate governance red flags drawing the attention of AI-based investor platforms.
The outcome:
A stakeholder co-designed roadmap for change
From here, Back to Blue is undertaking a collaborative global process to co-design a roadmap to close the marine pollution data gap, led by The Action Exchange. Our global stakeholder consultation process involves marine scientists, research funders, policymakers, investors and business leaders in a series of workshops, discussion papers and a virtual hackathon, and we plan to publish a draft roadmap in early 2024.
Examples of The Action Exchange’s published work include:
The Invisible Wave:
a deep dive research report into marine chemical pollution (co-author)