Why It Matters

Our stakeholders often have divergent views on how Duke Energy should meet future customer demand for reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy. Their views surface locally, nationally and globally in response to a number of factors, including new projects we develop, our long-range planning, changing legislative and regulatory policy, or our enhanced products and services.

Our stakeholders expect us to engage with them on important issues. As an industry leader, Duke Energy has a rich history of working with a diverse group of stakeholders. Our past experience demonstrates that we get better outcomes through collaboration and engagement. 

Stakeholder engagement is key to Duke Energy's success and a vital tool to help make our company an even stronger community partner.

Governance and Engagement Tools

Our stakeholder engagement function establishes company strategy and guidance for engaging external stakeholders and has regional stakeholder directors dedicated to each state jurisdiction. To improve our stakeholder engagement capabilities and governance, we are focusing on common processes and tools, best practice sharing and improved alignment across our jurisdictions. These resources help leaders and project managers identify key stakeholders and risks, decide on appropriate outreach methods and ways to mitigate risks, and imbed a consistent listen, learn and adjust stakeholder approach into project planning and implementation.  

We have also established state president stakeholder advisory councils in each of our jurisdictions. These councils provide an opportunity for Duke Energy state presidents to meet three to four times a year with representatives of diverse stakeholder groups and engage in candid, two-way dialogue. These councils enable stakeholders to learn about our business and, more importantly, to provide their insight and advice to inform company plans.

Successfully working with stakeholders will continue to be key as we accelerate our cleaner energy transition with our communities in mind.

Keys to Successful Stakeholder Engagement

Based on our past experience, we believe the following behaviors are keys to building relationships and unlocking new possibilities:
  • Transparent – Communicate openly, honestly and in a timely fashion. Be clear and specific about intentions, interests and goals for engagement. 
  • Inclusive – Engage a diverse group of relevant stakeholders early to identify solutions together.
  • Collaborative – Seek mutually beneficial solutions for a shared energy future. Identify “must haves” and be open to compromise on “nice to haves.”
  • Open-minded – Listen to gain understanding of all perspectives and put biases aside.
  • Trustworthy – Be genuine and match words with actions.
  • Patient – Recognize that building relationships and trust takes time.
 

Partnerships and Memberships

Working together with other organizations helps us find solutions to the issues we face. Below are examples of organizations we collaborate with. Please visit their websites for additional information.