governance - an overview | engagement policy and plan | decision-making | monitoring and evaluation


Governance - an overview
WWF's Business and Industry Core Group is a cross-divisional team responsible for managing all business policies and partnerships. With representatives from the business and consumption team, business education unit, company fundraising, directorate and communications, the Core Group enables an objective and holistic assessment of potential and current projects. Current membership is Dax Lovegrove, Edwina Silvester, Oliver Greenfield, Pippa Carte, Amanda Kennett and Caroline Emerton. The Core Group meets monthly and reports to Management Team (the Chief Executive and Directors).


Engagement policy and plan
Together, the policy and plan ensure consistency in approach across four broad bands of working with companies - fundraising, partnerships, innovation and challenge - by applying the following guidelines:

• to enter into a business and industry relationship which contributes to the attainment of our mission and the strengthening of our position to attain this mission;


• to treat each relationship on its own merits, incorporating environmental and ethical criteria to ensure that our mission is not undermined when making decisions on significant new relationships;


• to ensure the relationship will contribute to and not undermine the attainment of our mission;


• to identify hard and convincing evidence that the company itself is on a path to environmental performance improvement, or is fundamentally committed to change However, it must be emphasised that a poor record in this area may well be the reason for working with the organisation concerned: if there is a clear commitment to improve, a poor record may not outweigh the opportunity to improve it;


• to ensure the company acknowledges our right to criticise its behaviour if we see the need and is committed to the rules of engagement set out below.

For more information download WWF-UK's business and industry engagement policy as a PDF file.

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Decision-making
Given the multi-dimensional way WWF works with business - from fundraising partnerships to challenging activities - and the variety of companies and sectors WWF engages with, rigorous and transparent decision-making is crucial to demonstrate consistency. The business and industry Core Group's pro forma standardises this.

Monitoring and evaluating
It is necessary to measure the added-value and impact of our business portfolio in order to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. WWF's monitoring and evaluating process will be published here shortly. Specific examples include monitoring the Better Business Pack, the Sustainability Action Network and the WWF 95+ Group. For more information, see Projects and Initiatives.