Applying Corporate Political Responsibility Governance to Public Affairs Decision-making
Summary
Principled Influence: A Guide to Strengthening Public Affairs Practices in Polarized Environments (v1.0) is designed to help management teams take concrete steps to strengthen the governance of their external affairs in turbulent times by conducting a Public Affairs Governance Review.
It offers a flexible, self-paced process for reviewing and upgrading your Public Affairs Engagement Policy. It draws on the concept of “Corporate Political Responsibility” (CPR) Governance – an emerging set of best practices to help companies achieve five benefits in high-stakes political environments:
- Mitigate Enterprise Risk
- Fulfill Fiduciary Obligations and Business Purpose
- Enable Long-term Value
- Build Strong Stakeholder Relationships and Reputation
- Support Stable, Healthy Systems
Who Can Benefit from a Public Affairs Governance Review?
- Senior leaders responsible for external engagements (Public Affairs, Communications, Legal, Government Relations, Risk Management, Sustainability, etc) may use a review to pressure-test current policies
- Investors and directors may want to request a review (See specific questions for Investors.)
- Firms seeking certifications (B Corp, Zicklin Index, GRI 415, etc) may use a review to upgrade their policies
How to Use this Guide
This Guide is designed for use by a cross-functional Review Team, tailored based on your firm's goals. Once you have downloaded the Guide, review the Introduction for background and step-by-step instructions.
Additional Resources
For a quick one-page overview to share with colleagues, please see Principled Influence: A Quick-Start Guide to Navigating Public Affairs in Polarized Environments.
Or, to dig deeper into whether your current policies align with your corporate purpose and brand promises, please see our Principled Influence Pulse Check.
Finally, please reach out if we can assist with your review, or to share your suggestions as we continue to update this Guide.
1 The content draws on our experiences with the Erb Institute’s Corporate Political Responsibility Taskforce and the emerging field of Democracy-aligned Investing, as well as input from numerous colleagues and executives concerned about this topic (see Acknowledgements for a partial list.)