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IV. World Café Results ________________________________________________________________________
IV. World Café Results
The World Café is a method to establish an open and creative conversation process on a certain topic
in a business meeting or workshop. The method’s aim is to surface participant’s collective
knowledge, share ideas and insights, and gain a deeper understanding of the subject and the issues
involved. The results of the workshop’s World Café are presented in this chapter.
1. What is our motivation to create successful partnerships?
The motivation of NGOs to engage in partnerships with companies is manifold. It should be clear that
the reasons are not always purely idealistic. Most often, NGOs seek to solve an environmental
problem at a local, regional, national or international level that can not be solved by the NGO alone
or that is caused by a company or industry sector. Companies on the other hand have access to
different financial resources to fund partnerships for the protection and sustainable use of
biodiversity. Furthermore, companies have expertise in addressing different audiences which NGOs
are interested in approaching to improve awareness and facilitate action. In a time, when public
authorities relinquish more and more duties and reduce public funding, NGOs are looking for
different partners (i.e. companies) to achieve their objectives.
2. Which elements are missing at the moment?
� Practical and easy to use methodologies to
assess the impact and dependence of
companies on biodiversity
� Performance indicators to monitor the
progress of implementing a company’s
biodiversity strategy
� Knowledge and experiences to understand
the business case for biodiversity (e.g. drivers
of change, legal framework, customer base,
financial incentives) and convey the message
to companies
� Valuation of environmental services that do
not provide a service in economic terms
(intrinsic value of existence)
� More open-mindedness and business thinking
3. What advice can we give ourselves and others?
Traditional land uses that have positive effects
on the biodiversity can be supported by NGOcompany
collaborations. (source:FGN)
Much of the advice given focused on inter and inner-NGO aspects. NGOs should be aware of their
strengths because cooperation between them can be used to achieve more. The different roles that
NGOs play should be exploited, for example the “good cop, bad cop” strategy with organizations like
Greenpeace that are mainly for their public protest campaigns.
NGOs should also improve their knowledge, especially related to economic issues, so that they are
able to understand and communicate better with the business partners. This collaboration needs to
be seen as a long-term approach. Enough time should be taken into account for finding shared values
and risks. NGOs need to be realistic about what they can deliver and communicate the collaboration
as something positive, a joint effort of creating something together.
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