CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : CSR

Zoe McMahon on Accountability for Minerals in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

vp9a83272 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:37:00 GMT

I would like to draw your attention to an article by our Supply Chain Social and Environmental Responsibility Manager Zoe McMahon, who talks about corporations’ accountability for minerals sourced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). You can access the article here.

Non-governmental organisations regularly scan product components to determine whether they have been acquired under socially acceptable conditions. As Zoe says, this attention to detail within the framework of CSR is just as important for IT products. Traceability in an extremely complex supply chain such as the electronics industry has become key.

Zoe summarises the challenges of tracing ‘conflict minerals’ in our supply chain and names various initiatives which address the rising demands of traceability. Last month we held a multi-industry forum together with Dell, Intel, Motorola and Philips to discuss the role of mineral trade in financing the armed conflict in the Eastern DRC. NGOs, certification bodies and other entities also participated in the discussions. The forum focused on industry actions that need to be taken in order to ensure that metals are sourced from mines not associated with the conflict in the country.

I would be very keen to hear your thoughts on both our approach and Zoe’s comprehensive article.

Karl Daumüller, Programme Manager and Lead Auditor for HP’s Supply Chain Social and Environmental Responsible Programme

Case Study on Responsible Business Competition

ulrikehaug — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:45:00 GMT

Allow me to draw your attention to our latest Case Study about the Responsible Business Competition, which we every year with Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Europe.

The latest addition to the competition is a new application on Facebook, the ‘Responsible Business Challenge’, which invites students up to the age of 25 to submit their ideas on what a responsible business could look like in the year 2020. You can vote for and comment on the ideas that have been submitted, even if you’re older than 25. Log on now and check out the application!

Ulrike Haug

White paper: From Green IT to Greening with IT

jeanne2007 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:02:00 GMT

A few months ago, WWF published a HP-supported white paper called ‘From Green IT to Greening with IT’. The paper is directed mainly at policy makers and aims to explore the role of IT in business and government strategies for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It particularly looks at how the current economic and financial crisis can be turned into an opportunity to promote the uptake of low carbon IT solutions.

The paper illustrates nicely the difference between the meaning of Green IT and Greening IT, which is, I think, really important to stress. Green IT refers to making IT more efficient to reduce GHG emissions from the IT sector, which account for 2% of global GHG emissions. Greening with IT, on the other hand, means providing low carbon IT solutions that reduce GHG emissions across different sectors. Examples would be virtual meetings that replace the need to travel as often, thereby reducing the levels of GHG emissions that are generated from the travel sector. Such Greening with IT solutions can be integrated in all businesses and can consequently have an enormous effect on reducing emissions, as they address the remaining other 98%.

We summarised the main points of the paper in an article. Please have a look at the article and the paper.

This paper is the last in a series of several reports that HP EMEA supported for WWF. You can find links to the reports at the bottom of the article.

For insights into IT as an enabler of a low carbon economy, I can also recommend reading blogs by Dennis Pamlin, the author of the reports.

Jeannette Weisschuh

Russian students win HP JA Global Business Challenge Award

jeanne2007 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:38:00 GMT

Wow! Nearly 1000 students participated in this year`s JA Global Business Challenge and eight teams made it to the final. In the end, the Russian Team Topol-M won the prestigious award, which included a cash prize of US $3,000. Second place was awarded to Team 4 Life from Kazakhstan and Team Kiki Phi from China came in third. Congratulations to all of you!

The HP Global Business Challenge is a business simulation game devised by Junior Achievement which has been supported by HP over the last years. It is a global competition, in which student teams from secondary schools and universities run virtual corporations. The challenge is based on an online programme, where the students have to make specific business decisions for their companies. The aim is that the students acquire business knowledge and skills and understand the real effect of the decisions that they make.

For more information about this year´s HP Global Business Challenge Award, please read this article or go to the HP Global Business Challenge information website.

Jeannette Weisschuh

Working conditions: a worldwide issue

jeanne2007 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:14:00 GMT

When we talk about working conditions in global supply chains, we often think of the human rights and labour issues in Asian factories that dominate the media. But what about working conditions in Europe? The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work conducted a survey among European workers focusing on the health and safety conditions of their workplaces. The main finding of the survey is that health and safety standards might suffer during the economic downturn. More information about the survey findings can be found here.

I found it interesting to see that the economic crisis impacts all different kinds of levels – including working conditions. I found it scary that three quarters of the respondents state that their ill health is related to their work and working conditions… The results of the survey are not too positive and are a cause for concern. I think that corporations must do their bit to improve working conditions or ensure that working conditions do not deteriorate. After all, employees are at the heart of corporations.

Jeannette Weisschuh

Winners of 2009 Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award announced

ulrikehaug — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:41:00 GMT

You might have seen my earlier blog entries about our support for the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award and the video produced by WWF to support the award. Today, I am pleased to share with you the names of the winners of the essay competition!

First place went to Jonathan Alexander from the University of Bath, second was awarded to Luc Petit from Ashridge Business School and Srikanth Madani from the University of St. Gallen came third. They were awarded their prizes (EUR 7,000; EUR 5,000 and EUR 3,000 respectively plus career advice from Spencer Stuart) on Monday at the Swedish EU Presidency Conference called ‘Eco-efficient Economy – Towards Innovative and Sustainable Competitiveness’.

If you want to learn more about the winners and the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award, which was supported by HP, EABIS and WWF, you can listen to a podcast with Matthew Gitsham from Ashridge Business School and Jonathan and Srikanth or read our feature story.

If you’d like to read the 3,000 word essays by Jonathan, Luc and Srikanth, you can also download the Award Publication, which includes all the shortlisted essays.

Ulrike Haug

GET-IT Networking conference: Immersive Learning!

Daniela.Opp — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:24:00 GMT

This was just so amazing and very rewarding. On 16 and 17 October we held our second GET-IT networking conference in Cairo, Egypt. The conference was hosted by the Ministry of ICT in the ‘smart village’. We had representatives from 80 GET-IT centres, government organisations and educational institutions, as well as real entrepreneurs - our success stories - and they came from about 20 EMEA countries. We all joined hands during the conference and made the theme of the conference – Immersive Learning – a reality.

What did we do? The aim of the conference was to bring together delegates from our GET-IT centres, leaders from education and government and HP management, to exchange experiences, share best practices and get the latest updates on our GET-IT programme. This conference enabled participants to grow their own GET-IT network and learn from each other.

A real highlight for me was to see what GET-IT can achieve when we all come together and the impact that our GET-IT training clearly has on students and the local economy. Another highlight was hearing from entrepreneurs who spoke about how they were able to build their business or improve their economic situation as a result of their GET-IT training.

For instance, we heard from Aissatel Amet from France. She said that she had wanted to establish her own business as a web designer but she lacked sufficient knowledge in Excel programming and numbers. Her GET-IT training helped her to develop her knowledge and ability and she has now successfully launched her own business. These are moments that warm your heart.

The huge amount of work that went into organising this event was also a big highlight for me. It was clearly evident that the Micro Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I), the Suzanne Mubarak Peace Movement Foundation (one of our GET-IT partners in Egypt), United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and of course HP really worked so hard and so well together. It was amazing. In addition to sharing experiences and best practice, we also provided our delegates and NGO partners with the latest developments of the GET-IT programme, specifically focusing on our online extension of the programme.

For example, in future the GET-IT centres will have the opportunity to get engaged in curriculum developments online and will be able to suggest topics of interest. Also, we have just launched our second serious game on the online GET-IT City platform. It is called GET-IT Blossom and it represents an extension of our existing online training platform GET-IT City.

GET-IT Blossom is an interactive training programme where the player is a manager of a flower business. The player has to make sure that his customers are happy, the turnover increases and the plantation and office-related work are run successfully.

It was so motivating and rewarding to see how the centres shared their experiences and engaged so well in ‘immersive learning’. To see how GET-IT helps students on a local level makes me feel very strong about our programme and I can’t wait to grow the scope and impact of this programme even further. We have made a lot of contacts within the centres and a number of governments are now really interested in growing GET-IT.

As you will remember from earlier blogs, GET-IT focuses a lot on online learning. This is why we made sure that the conference could also be accessed online to enable people who could not attend the conference in Cairo to participate from their own vantage point. They could do this, for instance, via our GET-IT Facebook page or our Twitter page and of course our GET-IT Homepage. You can find more information about the conference on all of those pages.

I would like to finish my blog entry by extending a big thank you to everyone who participated in the conference. Thank you for all of your contributions, your trust and your work. Let me also thank our partners, the Micro Enterprise Acceleration Institute for all their hard work in helping to organise the conference, as well as to the Ministry of ICT and the Suzanne Mubarak Women´s International Peace Movement for hosting us and for their support both before and during the event. Chapeau!

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investment, EMEA

PS: you can find recent news about GET-IT on our homepage, our video or latest case study.

Trend not only in the US: Responsible social citizens wanted

jeanne2007 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:16:00 GMT

Last month I came across an interesting Time article. Even though they talk about the American consumer, I think this is relevant news for us in Europe as well.

The article describes how consumers in the U.S. look for companies which strive to be responsible social citizens. It gives us an interesting history lesson, starting with Milton Friedman’s famous position that corporations have a responsibility to increase profits only for their shareholders to the civil society movement of the 1990s (boycotts, demonstrations etc) and the creation of social investment funds. Where are we today? According to a Time survey, more than 60 per cent of those asked said that they are buying organic products. More people buy energy efficient products. Almost 40 per cent of the survey respondents indicated that they bought a product because of the social or political values of the corporation. This is music in my ears.

Even though the survey featured only Americans, I am sure that we would find a similar trend here in Europe. If anyone knows about similar surveys here in Europe, please let me know.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

jeanne2007 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:23:00 GMT

For the third consecutive year, our blog is participating in the Blog Action Day. The idea of the Blog Action Day is to encourage bloggers all over the world to post an entry on the same topic on the same day to raise awareness. The motto is: One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

After last year’s topic on poverty (read our blog entry here), we are back with an environmental issue: Climate Change. Climate Change has been at the top of the agenda for many years and this is why: Climate Change constitutes environmental, economic and social risks. But there are also opportunities, especially for businesses that are committed to finding ways to alleviate climate change.

As a technology company we look at the environmental impact of our operations, the life cycle of our products and how we can help our customers reduce their carbon footprint. Let me highlight some of our latest eco solutions products and services to give you an example of how we do that. With our Eco Solutions programme, we offer more than 115 products that feature our HP Eco Highlights label. Our DeskJet D2545, for example, is made of 83% recycled plastic material. This version also uses 40% less energy than its predecessor. For an overview, have a look at our Eco Solutions Website.

Did you know that saving 1,000 business flights between London and New York for one person can prevent more than 1,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions? It also saves around $2 million in airfares. HP Halo Videoconferencing System offers an alternative to business travel and, at HP, we use it wherever we can to reduce our carbon footprint. By offering Halo as a service to our business customers, we help them reduce their footprint too. Believe me, it feels like being in the same room with your colleagues who might be in the U.S. or China. You can connect up to four Halo rooms simultaneously. I try to use it wherever I can because it saves my time, my colleagues’ time and most of all it saves greenhouse gas emissions. To get an impression of HP’s Halo Telepresence and Videoconference effects on the environment, take a look here.

HP has also just launched SkyRoom, which brings videoconferencing right to your laptop in your office. SkyRoom is a software which enables the user to have live, real-time conversations in instant face-to-face meetings. But that’s not all. SkyRoom also allows users to share videos and presentations with each other. It actually nearly resembles a normal business meeting with your colleagues, except that you do not have to travel or invest hundreds of Euros. Soon this software will be pre-installed on several business desktops and workstations. So, with HP SkyRoom, videoconferencing becomes an affordable alternative to business travel. For more information on this, have a look at the website: www.hp.com/go/hpskyroom.

Technology advances quickly, doesn’t it? It does not only make our lives easier, but it also helps us to reduce our impact on the environment. As a single company, I think we are already making good progress in helping to alleviate climate change. But we must remember: there is still a long way to go and we will have to fundamentally change the way we live and work to help avoid the dangers of climate change.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

HP ranks first in Newsweek Green Ranking

ulrikehaug — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:34:00 GMT

Newsweek have just published their new Green Ranking list of the biggest companies in the U.S. I was very pleased to see that HP ranked #1. As Daniel McGinn points out in his article, such rankings can be quite controversial. Not all companies report on their environmental performance. Either that or they only report on selected parts and so it’s difficult to compare companies against each other. Nevertheless, Newsweek think they have found a sound methodology by working with KLD Research & Analytics, Trucost, and CorporateRegister.com. Here is some more information on how HP scored in the different categories.

What do you think about Green Rankings? Leave a comment and let me know!

Ulrike Haug, CSR Stakeholder Programmes, HP EMEA

Social Investment: What do we do?

Daniela.Opp — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:34:00 GMT

On this blog we always give you updates on our programme achievements. We decided to bring these updates together in a short article, to give you a great overview of our social investment approach and our main programmes. Click here to read the article.

I am looking forward to your comments to our Social Investment approach.

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investments, EMEA

Sustainability and CSR reporting is increasing

jeanne2007 — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:09:00 GMT

I’ve got good news to share: In its latest press release the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) states that more and more companies are gradually publishing sustainability and CSR reports. What strikes me is that Europe seems to outperform other regions.

GRI has revealed that nearly 50 per cent of the reports come from Europe, while only 15 per cent and 14 per cent come from Asia and North America respectively. Spain has more sustainability reports than any other country. Quite interesting.

At HP, we have one global online report but we try to do justice to the different regions by publishing regional or country reports for our customers in key markets across the globe. You can find our 2008 EMEA Global Citizenship Reports here.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the trend which GRI describes continues and that the number of CSR reports keeps rising. Despite the rise in recent years, it’s still quite still low overall.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Economic downturn: Excuse for not engaging or reason to engage even more?

jeanne2007 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:57:00 GMT

Reviewing the news headlines of the last weeks and months, it is obvious that the economic downturn is the still one of the most important subjects. And it seems that it will continue that way in the future. Here are some highlights of stories about CSR and the economic downturn that I recently read and thought would be interesting to share with you:

In his article in The Independent Richard Northedge describes the economic downturn as a welcome excuse for corporations to cut down on their CSR activities. He backs up his claims with various examples.

I think the economic crisis provides a severe test for all companies to see whether they actually walk their talk, even when the road gets bumpy. I think there are even more reasons to stick to CSR during the crisis. I read in an article in Ethical Corporation that customers demand CSR as manifested.

CSR is also necessary to restore the favourable business and investment environment that civil society supports. This is why Wang Ke pledges in his article that firms should take on even more social responsibility during a crisis. Furthermore, today’s students – our future managers – support CSR and demand it from corporations. As CNN recently reported, MBA students at Harvard Business School made an oath to serve the greater good for society.

CSR is demanded – even more so during rough times. Let’s keep it on track.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Social enterprise enters the stage, says Financial Times article

jeanne2007 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:43:00 GMT

In his recent Financial Times article Chip Feiss outlines a potential fourth sector: the social enterprise. With the call for corporate social responsibility, sustainability and corporate citizenship, this is not digressive.

A social enterprise can be either pro-profit or non-profit: The idea behind this is that it aims at serving the public/common good. Prominent examples are probably Fair Trade organisations.

I agree with Chip that there is considerable potential for social enterprises and also for social firms to open up a fourth sector. I cannot imagine why this should not happen. Maybe, if we want to tackle our global social challenges from yet another angle, it’s a necessary thing that should happen.

Do you know of any social enterprises or do you perhaps work for one? If you do, please leave a comment and tell me more about it.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

New Podcast: Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic from UNESCO talks about partnership on ‘brain drain’

ulrikehaug — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:24:00 GMT

I’d like to invite you to listen to our latest CSR podcast with Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic from UNESCO. Stamenka works in UNESCO’s Division of Higher Education where she is Chief of the Section for Reform, Innovation and Quality Assurance. She has been involved in the UNESCO/HP private public partnership since 2003, when we launched a pilot programme that focuses on alleviating ‘brain drain’ in South East Europe.

Through this initiative, HP and UNESCO have helped universities in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia to connect to international research networks with the help of grid-technology. This has allowed the students and faculty to participate in world-class research without having to leave their countries.

I recently met Stamenka at a project meeting where we discussed the extension of our African pilot initiative (which followed the South East Europe project in 2006) to more universities in Africa and the Arab States this year. Not having been with HP during the time of the South East Europe project, I enjoyed learning from Stamenka what worked in this initial project and what didn’t.

Listen to the podcast and let me know what you think about our initiative to connect universities with the help of grid and cloud computing technologies.

Ulrike Haug CSR Stakeholder Programmes