Principles for Community Engagement and Development

“Build Trust, Share Value in the Forest: Guiding Principles for Community Engagement and Development” invites forest sector companies and businesses with extensive land footprints to prioritise community engagement and development. This is not only to mitigate risks and gain a social license to operate, but also to create shared value that brings mutual benefits for both the company and the community. 

This report has been written in collaboration with members of the Forest Solutions Group, and uses real-world practices from these leading practitioners to offer practical and actionable guiding principles for creating shared value with local communities. 

Why this report matters  

For the forest sector – where operations are deeply intertwined with local landscapes and livelihoods – community engagement and development is not a peripheral activity, but a business imperative. The sector manages a significant share of the world’s forests natural resources and provides essential products, jobs and ecosystem services. Our activities shape the lives and economies of countless communities who share the forests where we operate.  

While frameworks such as the Business Commission to Tackle Inequality​​ provide sector-agnostic guidance on advancing the people agenda, the specific nuances of community engagement and development remain largely absent from business discourse. This report goes beyond broad guidance to show what meaningful engagement looks like in practice in the forest sector. It delivers practical, actionable insights tailored to the unique challenges and opportunities that land managers face. 

What readers can expect 

• A clear business case for long-term sustainable community engagement and development that achieves shared value creation  
• Learn about the merits for the forest sector in pursuing a holistic transition that places community engagement and development on an equal footing with climate change mitigation, nature conservation and restoration  
• Examples from real-world business, positioning community engagement and development as essential to business success   
• Guiding principles that can help companies from the forest sector and other land-use sectors to foster effective community engagement and development that is rooted in managing risk and securing a social license to operate, while also looking beyond to creating shared value 

Let’s keep the conversation going 

Moving forward, this report will help guide continued conversations with sector leaders and partners, but also facilitate and encourage shared learning to overcome common challenges, across the forest sector but also amongst land-based industries.