CSHR publishes a Tool on Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement

This tool aims to help sports organisations and event hosts/organisers conduct stakeholder engagement that “benefits people potentially at risk of negative impacts” and “supports robust due diligence processes within business.” The human rights due diligence process mirrors standard risk management practice, but its stand-out characteristic is meaningful stakeholder engagement to ensure people-centred outcomes.

There is a major push across industries towards a more collaborative, dialogue-based model of stakeholder engagement. This model often positively benefits organisations and the people impacted by their activities and supports ways to prevent or remedy abuse. This tool supports enhanced accountability and ethical leadership within sports operations. 

This tool builds on emerging good practice in sport and adapts frameworks from other sectors to the world of sport so they align with human rights due diligence. This tool aims to help you navigate the nuances of your future engagement efforts. It provides a step-by-step approach, with key questions to ask yourself and top-level guidance at each stage, recommendations, things to avoid and fictional examples from sport.

This tool features specific recommendations for leaders and supports them in taking a more sustainable and responsible approach to stakeholder engagement. We also signpost additional material on how to engage with specific affected groups and manage situations that require extra sensitivity or specialist input (e.g. persons with disabilities, survivors of abuse, migrant workers, children, etc.).

This tool is designed for all sports organisations - from the international to local club levels - and event hosts/organisers. It will be particularly helpful for those conducting the engagement (managers, federation or club staff, human rights advisors, event operational teams, consultants, etc.). The tool will also be of interest to various levels of seniority and departments - particularly senior leadership, who play a critical role in embedding meaningful stakeholder engagement into their organisational culture.

This tool aims to inspire good practice across the board, including among commercial partners like sport sponsors, broadcasters, suppliers, licensees and more. It may also be useful to civil society organisations and affected persons looking to share good practice with organisations that want to engage.

Anyone looking to engage stakeholders can use the tool. For example when:

• Adopting/revising regulations, policies, governance or strategy
• Developing event bidding requirements using a human rights-based approach
• Conducting risk assessments and due diligence for investments and partnerships (such as infrastructure or sponsorships) 
• Planning or delivering sporting events
• Leading human rights impact assessments
• Adopting/creating remedy and grievance mechanisms

This tool focuses on stakeholder engagement and assumes you are already familiar with human rights due diligence. However, if you would like to know more, we redirect you to other resources, such as CSHR’s guide Championing Human Rights and its Human Rights Playbook Series. This tool also refers to other useful tools such as CSHR’s Roadmap to Remedy and Glossary.

This work was led by the Centre for Sport and Human Rights in collaboration with ThinkSport as part of the Innovation Booster - Sport & Physical Activity, powered by Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency. Innovation Boosters offer both a space to reflect on ideas and a means to resource their realisation.

This tool was created on this basis. It was supported by a wide range of actors across the sport ecosystem. We would like to thank all those who supported and contributed time and expertise to this initiative. For more information on the background of the tool and key contributions, please download this document.

This is just the start. With further resources and the continued support of civil society, trade unions, affected groups and their representatives, CSHR aims to build on the overarching tool with a suite of supplements to support engagement with specific categories of affected people, e.g. athletes, survivors of abuse, fans, workers, volunteers, host city residents, women, children, indigenous communities and others.

We will aim to work proactively and directly with impacted communities and to expand the geographic scope of our research.