In sustainability reporting, organizations report on their environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performances. While sustainability reporting and certification are vital in many sectors (especially in resource management), many organizations are seeking additional management certifications to increase consumer confidence, build their reputation, and commit to sustainable practices.
Three widely adopted certifications are:
These certifications have many requirements, but are similar in that they aim to address various global issues and promote responsible forest management. However, there are also many differences between the certifications, especially as standards continue to evolve, so visiting their websites to learn more is highly encouraged.
There are often rigorous auditing processes that require extensive documentation to show how organizations are meeting or working towards meeting standards to maintain sustainability certifications. Keeping detailed, accurate records of everything in clear, understandable formats can help organizations maintain their certifications, which is where our Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software, Jambo, comes in!
While there are many situations where Jambo can help with maintaining sustainability certifications, we're focusing on:
A special site can be like a road that a hunter or trapper uses to access an area or a culturally significant site to a local Indigenous community. Depending on where you are working on your project(s), you may come across sites of special, cultural, religious, spiritual, economic or ecological significance. You have a responsibility to communicate with, and potentially collaborate with, individuals or communities to ensure you protect the site's integrity in an agreed-upon manner, depending on the circumstances of that specific site.
Using the simple integrated map viewer, you can identify special sites and export and share geospatial PDFs with your team or communities to enhance project understanding and transparency. Our mapping system is easy to understand, so you don't need a GIS (geographic information system) professional to know what you're looking at.
Should any issues around special sites be raised by stakeholders or community members, you can effectively track what's been raised, when, and by whom. Issues are searchable in Jambo so that you can find any issues (past or present) associated with a contact or an organization. Issues are easy to follow with Jambo's issues timeline, which helps you understand the history.
You can quickly produce reports for visual documentation of your organization's entire history of engagement with a single contact or an entire community, helping with transparency and showing engagement and consultation efforts to meet your certification requirements. When reporting for certifications, you can even add any of the issues we mentioned above to your shareable reports to show the full story of what you've encountered and how you've been working towards solutions.
It's crucial to recognize and respect the legal and constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples. Organizations that have a responsibility to demonstrate meaningful Indigenous consultation in a documented form must show they've made adequate efforts to communicate with Indigenous communities, while adhering to all legal requirements.
At Jambo, we always focus on the importance of building relationships with the people you're communicating with and doing that requires research. Take the time to learn about the Indigenous communities you're planning to consult with, including how they'd prefer to communicate and collaborate. With that said, be respectful of people's time and privacy rights.
With Jambo, your consultation teams can quickly log contact information, communications, issues, and commitments with Indigenous communities, allowing you to see whom you've consulted with and what has been said, along with any related information, such as tasks, commitments, or issues. Your teams can use Jambo to review and understand the history of consultation with Indigenous communities, which is essential in building those strong relationships.
Depending on the complexity of a project, one organization can have many staff consulting with the same Indigenous communities or groups at any one time. Indigenous community members are also likely to communicate with more organizations than just yours, so respecting their time by keeping records clear and accurate is vital. With Jambo, you have a centralized space to store all your consultation records, so you and your team always know what's been discussed, reducing the likelihood of repeat questions or unnecessary check-ins, keeping communications focused and personalized.
Jambo has streamlined the stakeholder information management process, which is excellent as regulators and stakeholders often want updates on short notice! One of the many functions that help you save time is Jambo's responsive design, which lets you access your information on your smartphone or tablet. You might be visiting Indigenous communities, and you can take Jambo on the go, so you don't have to wait to input your data. Plus, if your device has a microphone, you can use voice-to-text features to easily input your data. Mobile access is also beneficial, as you can quickly show Indigenous communities exactly what you've entered for greater transparency and to confirm you've understood everything, which helps build accurate records and trust.
Learn five ways Jambo helps you save time→
Whether you need to communicate and engage around worker and community safety, identify potential impacts of your project, educate people on your plans, or work towards issue resolution, you need to document all your stakeholder engagement efforts.
You may collect important documents, such as PDFs and images, relevant to your engagement efforts. For example, in Ontario, it's common for Local Citizens Committees (LCC) to keep meeting minutes, which you can easily add to Jambo. Any additional documents can be added to communication records, stakeholder profiles, issues and projects, and reports to ensure you're telling the full story.
Jambo's tagging feature is an excellent way to track relevant data, such as important keywords, trends, themes, groups, categories, or concerns. These tags work like hashtags for your input data and are excellent for organizing your data. If you have an important tag like "community safety," you can easily search all data with that tag and report on it to share related communications, issues, commitments, or tasks, making it easy to track your engagement efforts around that topic.
A stakeholder commitment is a promise made to a stakeholder, and these are very common in stakeholder engagement. With Jambo, you and your team always know what commitments exist and if they've been fulfilled. You can report on commitments by status to track important information, such as which commitments are currently high priority or overdue and require your immediate attention, thereby improving accountability and ensuring compliance.
Whether you're dealing with special sites, Indigenous consultation or stakeholder engagement, an SRM like Jambo can organize all your data and simplify your sustainability reporting process. The ability to share high-quality, focused data in easy-to-understand reports will help you achieve or maintain your sustainability certifications and broader ESG goals.
We've only mentioned a few of Jambo's features here, so check out our Product page for a full list of features or book a 15-minute discovery call with a Jambo expert!