12.3.2.1 Participants

The interviews with the various market parties formed an important basis for the selection of the workshop participants, i.e. about how interviewees see their position in the field, their willingness to contribute to the further development of the market, and their interest in participating in the workshop. The interviews were in fact the first step in the intervention process: the issues were addressed, the findings of the desk research were tested, and ideas gathered in previous interviews were communicated. For the selection of the workshop participants, the following criteria were applied:

The interviews revealed a good level of competition, especially between ESG Agencies. Even though the potential for collaborative advantage was recognised, these mutual relations were taken into account in the selection of ESG Agencies. Furthermore, the study and the interviews had an international focus. Due to practical reasons however, most parties who accepted the workshop invitation were based in the Netherlands (financial institutions, network organisations and NGOs) or in Europe (ESG Agencies and international institutions). Unfortunately, some ESG Agencies' representatives could not come due to financial restraints. The original composition of the group also suffered from some last minute changes, due to planning issues. Through phone calls with those persons and written commentaries, these representatives nevertheless contributed to the workshop discussion. This resulted in a situation where, apart from the project team, only six participants in the workshop programme had been involved in the first phase of the research. Two of the new participants replaced a colleague who was one of the interviewees. Consequently, for the majority of the participants, the workshop would be the first intervention. In order to prepare for the workshop, all participants had received a preliminary research report on the status quo of the market, including the analysis of the nine characteristics and a number of suggestions for further development of the market.

Due to said cancellations, the first selection criterion was not fully met. The ESG Agencies were somewhat underrepresented. During the workshop, it became apparent that also the second criterion was not completely satisfied, because some of the new participants had just recently started ambitions in this field. This resulted in a slight imbalance in knowledge levels and experience. The third criterion, showing a cooperative attitude towards the development of this field, was satisfied. The final group consisted of 17 participants, excluding two members of the research group. Table 1 shows the number of representatives per stakeholder group. The group was international, with an overrepresentation of Dutch and British participants. Other nationalities were: Swedish, Swiss and French.