The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) and the Sector Dialogues hosted the conference "Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement – From Principles to Practice" in Berlin on 16 September 2025. The event brought together 150 participants from business, civil society, rights holders, trade unions, academia and political institution to discuss challenges and success factors of meaningful stakeholder engagement.
Rights holders from Guinea, India and Myanmar shared their experience and stated clearly that the main objective of stakeholder engagement is to ensure that companies actively involve stakeholders in identifying, preventing, and mitigating human rights and environmental risks. Hence, integrating the perspective and expertise of rights holders can enhance more effective and sustainable business solutions.
The main insights of the conference are available here:
Conference Paper: Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement – From Principles to Practice
Impressions from the conference
Lilian Tschan, Permanent State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
Welcome by Gwendolyn Remmert.
Amadou Bah, Action Mines Guinea.
Panelists from left to right: Laura Hutt, Fairtrade Germany; Nora Hesse, Mercedes-Benz Group; Gina Edmonds, Lightrock; Padma-Dolma Fielitz, German Institute for Human Rights; Gwendolyn Remmert, Moderator.
Michael Congdon, ENTEGA; Florian Ebbing, E.ON; Amadou Bah, Action Mines Guinea and Padma-Dolma Fielitz, German Institute for Human Rights.
Venue: Konferenzzentrum Mauerstraße.
Deep Dive: “Navigating stakeholder engagement and risk analysis in corporate due diligence”.
Deep Dive: “Implementing collective measures through meaningful stakeholder engagement”.
Deep Dive: “Designing effective grievance mechanisms through meaningful stakeholder engagement”.
Networking during the event.
Wordcloud: Important factors for meaningful stakeholder engagement.