HOW TO DECIDE WHO IS A STAKEHOLDER AND WHO IS NOT?

To whom are oil companies responsible, and to what extent are they justified in spending the stockholders' money on an agenda that they have negotiated with other stakeholders? These were the questions explored during CERA's second Global Oil Summit, held in Houston in February 2004. There was broad agreement on the need for oil companies to reinforce and simplify communication of their goals and metrics, to show good performance. No one quarreled with the wisdom of tackling stakeholder issues at the local level, guided by a few broad principles:

- Difficult questions about good science and sound policy are not easy to address rationally in such a context.
- There is also a problem about keeping local issues local-with few restraints on who could claim to be a stakeholder, there is always scope for nongovernmental organizations or the media to pursue their own agendas.
- When addressing local concerns, companies do well to lengthen their time horizons.
- Public-private partnerships seem to emerge as the most successful new approach, although their broader applicability is still to be tested and established.

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