Shift Report on Community Engagement, Nature and Financial Materiality

This report from Shift can help you to better understand how the quality of a company’s engagement with Indigenous Peoples and local communities in relation to nature-related impacts is financially material. Based on a broad evidence base, the report highlights that nature-related issues - such as land use change and community displacement, environmental degradation, pollution, and resource use - are frequently at the heart of community opposition to company activities, and how these concerns often sit alongside concerns related to impacts on livelihoods, cultural heritage, access to food or water, consultation, consent, compensation, and the distribution of benefits. The report also shows that weak, late, narrow, or disconnected engagement is more likely to intensify opposition and increase the risk of adverse financial effects for organisations, and that companies that engage early, inclusively, continuously, and meaningfully with Indigenous Peoples and local communities are better able to identify these concerns, respond to them, and draw on local knowledge to improve project design and support nature-related opportunities. The report is divided into five parts. Part 1 explains the impacts on nature and community opposition; part 2 explores the financial effects of community opposition; part 3 explores the relationship between community engagement, community opposition, and financial effects; part 4 explains the drivers of this causal chain; and part 5 explains why this information is relevant to companies and investors.