Client: Parties of the Dutch Agreement on Responsible Gold
Mineral: Gold
Background: Parties of the Agreement on Responsible Gold have developed an agreement on international responsible conduct for businesses using gold. It aims to achieve a material positive impact on the international gold supply chain and to contribute to an increase in supply and demand of gold produced under improved social and environmental conditions.
Project objective: The Parties want to increase their leverage by reaching out to more gold industry stakeholders, focusing on refiners, standard setters and certification bodies. To develop an actionable strategy, they hired Levin Sources because of our “experience and network within the international gold sector [and] knowledge of responsible sourcing”.
The process:
The entire project was carried out remotely, making the best use of digital tools.
After a kick-off meeting with the Gold Agreement working group ‘collective actions and upscaling’, we mapped the outreach activities the Parties were already engaged in, drawing on our sector ASM and LSM expertise to identify key gaps.
Thanks to our broad knowledge of gold supply chains, their actors and key initiatives, we were able to identify the right stakeholders to engage, the best information sources, the existing gaps in the sector that the Gold Agreement fills, and how to proceed.
We then drafted an engagement strategy covering the who, what, when and how of each outreach action. The strategy also highlighted how existing actions of Parties could be further developed.
The result was an actionable stakeholder strategy that reflected the Gold Agreement’s vision. We delivered it during a meeting with the Gold Agreement Parties to ensure everyone involved in its implementation was clear on the next steps.
Client feedback:
Marthe van Laarhoven, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Boukje Theeuwes, Solidaridad Europe, co-chairs of the Working Group ‘Collective Actions and Upscaling’ of the Gold Agreement: “We were very satisfied with the quality of work delivered and the process as we received a strategy with feasible, concrete actions. Your presentation and the answers you provided during our General Assembly were clear and helped engage our signatories.”
