Reconciliation action plans can bring meaningful accountability to corporate Australia

‘In the Australian context, recognition of the need for reconciliation and social justice is now a fundamental element of any company’s approach to measuring their social and environmental impact.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

In 2006, it was almost unimaginable that mainstream Australian businesses would spend $2bn in goods and services with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-owned businesses and employ close to 64,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

If in 2006, you’d told me that Reconciliation Australia’s reconciliation action plans (RAP) program would grow from the eight organisations that stepped up at the program’s launch to the more than 2,000 with active RAPs in 2022, directly reaching almost 4 million Australians, I would have applauded your optimism.