CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa

Social entrepreneur of the year wanted - participate!

jeanne2007 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:54:00 GMT

I would like to quickly draw your attention to Schwab Foundation and its “Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2008” competition. For the last five years, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship has nominated the Social Entrepreneur of the Year from a selection of finalists taken from 30 countries.

In several countries the competition is still open and I would like to encourage you to participate or to forward the competition to anyone who you feel should be recognized as a social entrepreneur. Click here to see where the competition is still running.

At this point I would like to say that I appreciate the work and engagement of all social entrepreneurs worldwide and I already look forward to the announcement of the finalists of the competition but at the same point I want to say that all of you are winners.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

Use of light, not copper

jeanne2007 — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:11:00 GMT

I would like to point to an interesting blog entry by my colleague Jamie Beckett.She writes about how the use of light, instead of copper, for connections among blades, boards and chips could cut annual server energy consumption by 40 percent worldwide. It is worth reading.

Enjoy the blog

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

UN Global Compact: no free riders, please

jeanne2007 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:27:00 GMT

As you might know the United Nations Global Compact is built on ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. It encourages corporations to adopt sustainable and socially responsible business practices.

The Global Compact is sometimes criticized as simply being a window dressing tool: Critics claim that corporations sign the compact without really following the principles. This is of course not acceptable.

We signed the Global Compact in 2002 as the first Information Technology corporation and we consider its fundamental principles in our daily business operations. I was glad to read that Global Compact has taken action and actually delisted over 600 companies from the Global Compact. Those companies have not provided the needed feedback or indicated any progress since they signed up.

I think this is an important action by the Global Compact to signal that it is actually not a window-dressing tool and that those corporations who sign the compact actually need to engage with its processes and act upon the principles.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs EMEA, HP

HP Responsible Business Competition is making an impact on young people

jeanne2007 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:42:00 GMT

Since Junior Achievement (JA) was started nearly 90 years ago student competitions have been core to the JA experience. They have provided hundreds of thousands of students the opportunity to deepen their JA classroom experience, test their skills and knowledge, measure themselves against others, get a glimpse into their own potential success in the real world, and to make and meet friends from outside their own community.

The HP Responsible Business Competition is making a difference in the community by emphasizing the importance of social responsibility as an integral element of business, entrepreneurship and competition. I was particularly impressed to see how many students take the social and environmental aspects into consideration when they create their own student companies. The competition consists of two strands – an online ideas competition that rewards the best responsible business idea and the HP Responsible Business Awards, where JA-YE student companies that have been entered for the JA-YE Europe Company of the Year are acknowledged if their business has been set up and run what we call ‘responsibly’. This year we received more than 200 applications for the online business ideas contest and several of the 33 student companies participating in the JA-YE Europe Company of the Year Competition included aspects related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into their business plans.

More than 62,120 16-18 year old European students participated in the HP Responsible Business Competition over the last 2 years and 172 HP employees have been involved with mentoring student businesses and providing more insight into how social and environmental responsibility is part of doing business at a global market-leading company like HP.

The relationship between HP and JA-YE in Europe has grown tremendously in the last 5 years. Now in more than 20 countries, the partnership is a ‘best practice’ in CSR. There are many facets to the partnership and therefore many entry points for stakeholders. The signature HP Responsible Business project has created a unique European dimension to all the activities taking place on the ground. Taking up the highly topical theme of “responsible business”, HP and JA-YE created a classroom case-study module for HP employees to present in multiple locations in 14 countries. An online contest gives JA-YE’s Company Program students a chance to test their responsible business knowledge as well as present their responsible business ideas to an HP jury. The contestants at the JA-YE Europe Company of the Year Competition can win the HP Responsible Business Award.

At this year’s finals in Stockholm HP has selected the student team “Infotainment” from Austria as the winner of the 2008 HP Responsible Business Award for their concept to educate 8- to10-year-old students, their parents and teachers on environmental topics like climate change. The winning student company has educated more than 500 school students with the help of workshop modules, easy-to-understand environmental stories and games summarized in a booklet used to raise the interest of students, teachers and parents in environmental topics, while at the same time establishing a profitable business. This example shows that responsible business ideas can have a pretty early start. What an excellent experience for the future lives of our young generation.

Diana Filip, Director of Development and Marketing, JA-YE Europe

The winning team from Austria:

Impressions from the conference:

More green in the heat of the summer - what can we all do

jeanne2007 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:29:00 GMT

It is summer and for most of us this means it is holiday time. I have already been on holiday in Spring but I have to say that I have come increasingly across critical views on holiday trips.

The article by Ethical Corporation: “Water shortages – Greedy tourists bring drought” points to some worrying facts: The increasing amount of tourists in different parts of Europe has negative side effects like water shortages… Did you know that Barcelona has to import water? This is alarming. It is sad to see that the nicest time of the year can lead to such burdensome results… .

Leo Hickman summarized his experiences in 11 of the world’s most popular holiday destinations and points to the ethical aspects of going on holiday. It should come at no surprise that what we do impacts one way or the other the environment. Like in the Information Technology Industry and in other industries the demand for green increases.

I heard about a sustainable tourism certification in the United Kingdom: Green Tourism Business Scheme. This certification honors those businesses like hotels, corporate offices or tourism attractions for their effort in engaging in sustainable tourism activities. Did you know that hotels offer solar heated hot water, wood chip boilers, water turbines for energy savings or use heat from the earth?

It is interesting to see what the tourism industry already offers. I have to admit I was not aware of all of those opportunities. Are you aware of any others? Of course there is much more to be done and offered but for the most part it is important that we as tourists acknowledge these sustainable opportunities and start to make our holidays more green.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

Global 2.0: network connections needed

jeanne2007 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:09:00 GMT

I recently read an article by William J. Amelio, CEO of Lenovo who argues that the emerging economies’ ability to contribute ideas and knowledge to the global economy has meant that many more people have come out of poverty over the last 20 years than initially estimated by the World Bank.

He refers to “Global 2.0” as the driving force for the way out of poverty: We live in an interdependent network where innovative ideas are created in any corner. He is very right with what he says and I think we should make sure that the connectedness to emerging and developing countries gets stabilized.

HPs Social Investment Strategy focuses on the interconnectedness of different parts of the world with each other and in the next years, the networking aspect within our social investment programmes will be further strengthened. One big problem in African countries is for example that young graduates and scientists leave their home to follow a career in developed countries. To alleviate this “Brain Drain” we work together with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). With the help of grid computing technology we help scientists from select universities to connect with other scientists abroad and to get access to international research projects and resources.

Another example of global interconnectivity is our partnership with UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization). We have agreed to open additional GET-IT training centres in African countries. GET-IT (Graduate Entrepreneurship training through IT) is another Social Investment Programme which aims at providing young unemployed graduates (age 16-25) with IT skills to enable them to set up their own business or to be better placed for work life. We provide IT equipment to non-governmental organisations (NGOs/NPOs) as well as professional guidance courses for their trainers so that they can offer interactive courses specifically designed to improve business IT skills of young unemployed school leavers and graduates. With UNIDO we have a strong partner at our side to spread GET-IT across the African continent where it can help to foster economic development and to especially enable emerging countries to build on their creative ideas and to be more successful in business. We are also planning to help the different GET-IT centers in mature and emerging markets become more closely linked to exchange best practices and learn from each other.

Global 2.0 is on its way!

Daniela Opp, Manager, Social Investments and Economic Development, HP Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Sustainable from bottom up

jeanne2007 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:29:00 GMT

There are many best practices out there which demonstrate that company activities are most successful if they are actively supported by its employees. This is definitely true for HP´s sustainability employee networks at 20 major HP sites around the world. One of the main tasks of these self-organised local sustainability teams is to actively contribute to strengthen HP´s green company strategy.

Last Saturday, HP organised a picnic for 3,000 employees and their families at the HP site in Boeblingen/Germany. HP volunteers of the Boeblingen Sustainability Network organised a booth to educate visitors of the picnic on environmentally sound practices.

For example, in the invitation to the picnic employees where asked to take the train or to cycle instead of coming by car. Everyone who followed this advice received a cup as a a gift to decrease the usage of plastic cups in the office. Or on a bike connected to a generator, employees could experience the different amount of energy required for various light bulbs or for running a TV. Children where invited to fill in an environmental quiz and to participate in a painting competition on the environment.

The winners received prizes related to environmental projects like an adoption package for a WWF p olar bear. At the same time the employees from the sustainability network were able to advertise their activities and invited new members to contribute to the network with other bright ideas.

It has been pretty amazing to see the high interest of HP employees in the work the volunteers had done as part of the Boeblingen Sustainability Network. While I was at the booth I had many inspiring conversations with employees who have provided many additional ideas to further increase the impact of the work of the sustainability network.

My feeling is that due to the motivating spirit of the sustainability team at the Boeblingen site we can expect quite a few follow-up environmental projects along the lines of "there is nothing good, except you do it".

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

Three years in a row – HP Environment Days

jeanne2007 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:48:00 GMT

I can’t believe how fast time goes. I still remember hearing about our very first Environment Days in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in 2006. I am very pleased to see how our reach has increased from 16 sites in 11 countries in 2006, to 24 sites in 15 countries in 2007 to finally over 31 sites this year. I want to congratulate our country teams who organized the events. Well done!

We mark the UN World Environment Day (June 5) by encouraging our employees to organize environment-related activities in their offices, for example collecting out-dated IT equipment, inviting external speakers or organizing any other event which brings environmental issues into focus.

I would like to point at some of this year’s highlights but I’d also like to say that all events were highlights in themselves. Portugal for example organized a fair outside the office building where art and craft items and organic products were sold. Besides, our Portuguese team organized a take-back event where 28 pieces of IT equipment were collected.

Leixlip in Ireland picked up the theme of the World Environment Day “Kick the CO2 Habit” and set up a car exhibition of low CO2 emission cars in front of the office. Representatives of the car companies provided additional information. To also promote emission-free traveling there was a display of the latest bicycles. Finally, our employees at Leixlip encouraged the canteen to display the amount of food miles each dish on the menu had incurred that day.

Each year I hear about these great initiatives and I am impressed by our colleagues’ enthusiasm and creativity. I talked to some colleagues and they described their event as a great initiative which received positive feedback from our employees. I cannot wait until next year’s Environment Days.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

Solar Powered Car - the start of a long journey

jeanne2007 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:23:00 GMT

I am the education business manager for the Personal Systems Group (PSG) at HP United Kingdom (UK) and I would like to tell you about a great project we are supporting: Solar Powered Cars.

Although a worldwide sponsorship (with solar races across the globe), given the group running and designing the car are UK based, I am the main liaison point for HP with the team and ensured the sponsorship got off the ground.

HP has recently announced that it is sponsoring the Cambridge University Eco Racing (CUER) team, including providing its latest technology that will be used to enhance the design, build and operation of the solar racing vehicle as it prepares to race in the 2009 World Solar Challenge.

CUER’s first big test took place in June 2008 when their inaugural car, “Affinity”, drove from Land’s End in Cornwall, UK to John O’Groats in Northern Scotland, using only the power of the sun’s energy. Admittedly, some bad weather along the way - it is British summertime after all - meant that there were a few sections when the car had to be put on a trailer. But all in all, it was a great success.

HP mobile workstations, handhelds and business notebooks were used to manage and analyse solar power consumption, mechanical performance and environmental data. Enabling the support team to tell the driver how to adjust his driving style in order to get the most efficient power consumption and keep driving.

They will be entering the same car in the Zero Rally Africa that travels 4,000 km (2,485 miles) from Victoria Falls in Zambia, via Namibia to Cape Town in South Africa, during 10 days in January 2009, followed by a completely newly designed and built car for the World Solar Challenge on 18-25 October 2009 in Australia. The World Solar Challenge goes from Darwin in the Northern Territories to Adelaide, in South Australia, covering a distance of 3,000 km (1,865 miles). HP's powerful xw8600 workstations will be used to design the new car, which they hope will be a good challenger for solar honours.

I am closely following the team’s progress and am looking forward to the next big test – Zero Rally Africa. At least the weather will be less wet (and somewhat warmer) than during the test drive in the UK.

Thomas O’Kill, Education business manager, HP UK

Web 2.0 and CSR - the excitment has just begun

jeanne2007 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:08:00 GMT

I attended a pretty exciting workshop on CSR and Web 2.0 during SAP´s Sapphire event at the end of May in Berlin. Even if the CSR community and especially companies are only just beginning to make active use of social media, there are great opportunities ahead.

Especially for a more regular stakeholder dialogue Web 2.0 offers strong advantages to help to increase transparency into a company’s CSR strategy and related programmes. James Governor from open-source analyst firm Redmonk has an interesting view on this. Redmonk decided to go green a while ago by setting up a “green” arm to their open source analyst business. According to James, “With the help of Web 2.0, CSR is becoming a window itself - an important gateway between the business and us: individuals, customers and stakeholders." Wow, what a statement!

Another very true comment was made by Dennis Howlett from ZDNet, encouraging companies to include social media more actively into their communication strategy "There is nothing to fear except you have something to hide". Yes, how true even if it is of course important to have tools to measure the success of communication campaigns in place. And this is currently obviously still an area to be further explored in the Web 2.0 space.

James Farrar, VP for CSR at SAP who hosted the workshop even believes that web 2.0 could redefine CSR reporting making it much more dynamic considering stakeholder views from online communities etc. The more you think about the great potential which lies behind the better usage of web 2.0 in the CSR space the more exciting it gets.

And here is another piece of advice from Dennis Howlett "You are not going to get it right. You are going to make mistakes. But there is only one way - go for it!"

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

CSR Europe Assembly Meeting - inspiring networking experience

jeanne2007 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:32:00 GMT

Together with representatives from 75 major companies I have been attending this year’s annual assembly meeting from CSR Europe in mid of June in Brussels.

A meeting like this is always a good opportunity to get an overview of the activities of a pretty active enterprise and non-profit organisation (NPO) network organisation and to reflect how this contributes to our own CSR objectives. I believe in 2007, CSR Europe has made great progress in increasing the transparency and awareness of best practices on leading CSR programs.

Looking at the new website and the increase of monthly site visits by 300 percent on 15,000 or the European Marketplace Event which took place in November with more than 600 participants and nearly 90 CSR solutions that have been presented by companies and NPOs - these are impressive results which clearly show the strong engagement of member companies in many ways.

Another great achievement has been the launch of 20 laboratories on break-through CSR topics like responsible supply chain management, eSkills and employability or eco efficiency to mention just a few. Companies across industries, NPOs and EU representatives have set joint objectives around these topics and are addressing burning societal needs together.

The results out of the laboratory work are going to be presented during a major EU event on December 4. At the assembly meeting the enthusiasm around the laboratories became very obvious when the different teams invited the meeting participants to informal discussion rounds where they shared insights into their work. There is still plenty of work to be done but the perspective to address societal needs jointly is of course highly motivating.

Another outcome from a cross-company collaboration which was presented at the assembly meeting is CSR Europe´s first Sustainable Marketing Guide to help all marketeers in the consumer space to communicate more successfully. In addition to the printed guide there is an online game to demonstrate consumers shopping experience and challenges they face in a very lively way. Both the printed guide as well as the online game are available on the CSR Europe website.

Inspired by many best practices and a high interest from meeting participants to learn more about companies’ CSR programs and potentially even collaborate - I can only say I got a lot out of this year’s CSR Europe assembly meeting and I am already looking forward to the next inspiring networking experience.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs EMEA, HP

Eco Solutions – the highlights

judith.schrempf — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:05:00 GMT

Eco Solutions constitutes a large scale program in several ways. First of all, it supports all kinds of customers- from consumers to businesses of all sizes Then, it offers a wide spectrum of tools and services which are designed to reduce the environmental impact of the products, for example, in the form of energy usage. I want to highlight only some of the Eco Solutions Elements.

I am myself a consumer and know how difficult it is to find out which of the many products really is the best in environmental terms. The Eco Solutions Program therefore includes a label which highlights the environmental attributes of products and services.

Besides, Eco Solutions offers a new product portfolio within imaging and printing which includes features reducing the environmental impact. The Auto On/ Auto Off feature is probably the most prominent example. Did you know that up to 66 percent of wasted energy is used up by equipment that hasn’t been turned off over night or on weekends? Well, the Auto On/Auto Off feature is only one example of how our customers can save energy with the Eco Solutions Program.

What I like about Eco Solutions is that it does not only address one or two issues, but it is very comprehensive . Please have a look here (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2008/ipgenvironment/) to find out more about it.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, EMEA HP

We are moving - migration to new blogging platform

warren.sander@hp.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Over the next two weeks we are migrating to a new blogging platform. During this period we will not be able to update our blog, so will take an early, unvoluntary summer break.

We will be back in full force on June 1, with a whole collection of new entries.
As of tomorrow we can neither post new entries on this blog nor can we receive any comments. So please bear with us until our new site is live and we hope to see you back here on our blog on June 1.

Many thanks for your understanding.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

Reducing energy use and carbon emissions with Thin Client technology

warren.sander@hp.com — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:32:00 GMT

Did you know that the increasing use of thin client systems has already helped reduce global CO2 emissions drastically in the last four years? A recent study by the prestigious Fraunhofer Institute based in Germany revealed some interesting insights.

Compared to normal PCs, thin clients produce up to 50% less energy while in operation. Naturally, such energy reductions are however only helpful if consumers also buy such energy saving products. The study revealed also some information regarding the sales and concluded that the number of sales of thin clients has increased. These are good news.

But besides thin clients there are already many energy saving options available in all other product groups. At HP, we want to reduce the energy consumption of our desktop and laptops by 25 % by the year 2010, relative to 2005 figures. Our desktops consist of various energy-efficient features which save energy and offer higher performance at the same time. An example would be the HP rp5700 Business Desktop PC. It allows our customers to save as much as 80% in power consumption compared with previous-generation systems. .

HP and many other companies are eager to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions by reducing the energy usage of its products. In cooperation with WWF we are currently also working on a customer report to demonstrate how ICT solutions can contribute to reduce 1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. We are more than happy to provide you with further insights as soon as the report will be available.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

Best practice: Supply Chain Management

warren.sander@hp.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:50:00 GMT

I would like to share a best practice of Intel with you today regarding their supply chain management. Intel organizes a Supplier Day on a yearly basis and invites its equipment and material suppliers to talk about their business relation and Intel’s expectations. Such a supplier Day is also useful to discuss about existing partnerships but also to initiate cooperation.

At the event, Intel recognises the best suppliers which receive awards like the Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement (SCQI) award or the Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) award. I like the idea of such an annual supplier event where you can directly approach certain issues together. My colleagues and I have already talked a lot about the importance of engaging with our suppliers for a sustainable and socially responsible supply chain and I believe we also have good programs underway. As you might know we recently published a list of our suppliers in order to increase transparency and foster further positive changes along our supply chain.

Our approach regarding supply chain management is based on capability building. We work closely with our suppliers and try to provide them with the expertise and skills to operate a sustainable supply chain of their own and teach their own suppliers how to integrate socially responsible and environmentally sound practices in their business operations. You can read about the latest results of our capability approach in the report “Small Suppliers in Global Supply Chains” which was sponsored by the European Commission. The report is based on findings from a project run with HP suppliers and their suppliers in Central and Eastern Europe in cooperation with the Danish Commerce and Companies Agency (DCCA). Read Karl’s blog entry about the project for more detailed information.

In our latest Global Citizenship bulletin you can also read or listen to an interview with Mette Andersen, Special Advisor to the DCCA. She talks about the challenges of small and medium sized suppliers. Best practices like the supplier day and awards by Intel show that the industry is aware of the challenges and is working on diverse ways of how to tackle them. If you are aware of further best practices in this field, I would like to invite you to share them with us by posting a comment below.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA