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Multinational oil and gas companies have been active in Latin America for decades. Their corporate behavior has at times been less than exemplary from an environmental and social point of view. This corporate behavior has bred mistrust of foreign companies among communities in Latin America and sometimes has resulted in local action against the companies. This community action has proven costly in terms of lost production, lost contracts, and increased security. Some companies recently have been experimenting with new ways of operating in environmentally and socially sensitive areas that incorporate concepts of sustainable development and collaboration. This article describes a sustainable development-based form of collaboration with local communities that we call “strategic bridging” and uses a case study to illustrate the concept. Collaboration is a strategy available to companies for dealing with turbulent and complex operating environments. A strategic bridging organization, such as a sympathetic nongovernmental organization (NGO), may be able to bring together organizations and groups that may be widely disparate in wealth, power, culture, language, values, interests, and structural characteristics. 1 NGOs in Latin America can sometimes effectively play the role of a strategic bridge between communities and corporations.

Sustainable Development The term Sustainable Development (SD) was first coined in 1972 at the United Nations’ Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. However, it was not until 1987 when the Brundtland Commission’s Report, formally titled “Our Common Future,” popularized this term. 2 …