Community and stakeholder engagement guide

MWRRG’s Community and stakeholder engagement guide assists the waste and resource recovery sector to deliver meaningful and successful community and stakeholder engagement.

Good engagement practice, where decisions are informed by the views of stakeholders and consider the needs of the community, not only builds trust and understanding but also ensures that better decisions are made for Melbourne’s communities.

Community engagement helps build and maintain a social licence to operate. A social licence is the acceptance continually granted to a business by the local community or other stakeholders for the business to operate. The resource kit in the guide will assist the sector to gain a social licence to operate.

Sustainability Victoria has more information on social license to operate including a training program coming soon.

The guide includes:

• an introduction to community engagement and why it is important
• principles that can be used to guide community engagement activities
• how to gain a social licence to operate
• a best practice engagement planning process
• engagement methods, templates and tips to help site operators (of all levels of experience) effectively engage communities and stakeholders.

The guide was developed with significant input from industry and community representatives.