Stakeholder engagement

We take part in a wide range of forums at local, regional and international levels. This participation by our senior management in local and international business, engineering, industry-related and other organisations gives us an important platform for local, regional and international networking, ensuring that we are informed of current or proposed developments in the regulatory and business environment.

At a global level, Mondi is an active member and/or participant of the following organisations:

• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD): a coalition of some 200 international companies united by a shared commitment to sustainable development;
• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Sustainable Forest Products Industry Working Group (SFPIWG): a working group involving some 26 leading global forest products companies, which aims to tackle sustainability issues in the global forest industry;
• High Conservation Value (HCV) Network: a global network of organisations and individuals supporting the HCV approach that promotes practical conservation and a consistent approach to HCV areas. HCV is a key aspect of our forestry programme in Russia and South Africa. Mondi participates as a member of the HCV network steering committee;
• The Forests Dialogue (TFD): a global multi-stakeholder forum consisting of skakeholders from different regions, committed to the conservation and sustainable use of forests. TFD provides a platform for the forestry industry to engage society on significant issues related to the industry. Participants include global forestry companies and global NGOs such as WWF, World Resources Institute (WRI), Conservation International (CI), Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Forests Peoples programme.

On a European level, we are also an active member of the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), which represents the interests of the continent-wide pulp industry to European institutions.

Mondi has been awarded membership of both the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) and the Pan-European Dow Jones (DJSI STOXX). We are the only company from the forestry and paper sector that is represented in both these indices.

In addition we qualified for inclusion on the 2007 Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). This assesses the environmental, social and economic sustainability practices of listed companies, to meet the needs of those stakeholders who are interested in socially responsible behaviour and investment.

• WWF: We have maintained our technical cooperation agreement with WWF since 2005 and during 2007 the focus was on the Mondi Wetlands Project in South Africa, a project which promotes sustainable best practice for plantation forestry design.
• Silver Taiga: We worked with local NGO Silver Taiga, as well as WWF, on the definition and identification of HCV forestry areas in the Komi Republic.

We continue to co-operate with smaller, local NGOs on a range of projects, including our work in South Africa on the protection and conservation of rare and endangered species such as the Wattled Crane and Oribi.