CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : Global Citizenship

Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change – call for signatories

ulrikehaug — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:59:00 GMT

In preparation for the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December, the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change (CLG) has launched the sign-up process of the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change. Gary Elliott, Vice-President of Global Citizenship, HP, has endorsed this statement from the business community. The communiqué is a message to governments stating that a large part of the business community calls for an ‘ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change’.

So far, more than 130 global companies have signed the Communiqué. The CLG hopes to reach 500+ companies from across the globe. The deadline for signatures is Friday 11th September 2009. So. if you work in a business that supports the goals of the Communiqué, why not grab this chance to sign up?

Ulrike Haug
CSR Stakeholder Programs

Podcast with director of Cranfield University on teaching sustainability

jeanne2007 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:57:00 GMT

David Grayson recently gave an interview to Toby Webb from Ethical Corporation on the development of teaching CSR at universities. David has quite an interesting background: He has been involved in CSR for quite some time, convincing businesses to integrate sustainability and social issues in their agenda. He has also been a social entrepreneur, involved in successful projects such as Housing21 and is still active in the Business in the Community. In the podcast a lot of hot issues are touched upon. Amongst others, David discusses the critique that business schools have focused too much on shareholder value approaches. He also elaborates on the changes in business schools during recent years, such as the integration of the principles of responsible management education or the Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey.

The podcast is definitely a ‘Must Hear’. It illustrates well the CSR discussions and issues that education institutions face. You can listen to it here. What do you think about the points that David raises? He gives several examples from the UK, but I guess these are equally relevant to Europe as well.

CSR is not just a business issue; it’s an overall issue. Our future managers need considerable education in CSR in order to stand up to the latest developments and civil society demands. We have been trying to contribute to a different education in business schools by supporting the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award together with EABIS and WWF. Our goal is to get post-graduate students to think about how we need to be innovative today in order to create a low-carbon economy for tomorrow. A jury is currently reviewing the best essays submitted for the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award and we will announce the winners in the Autumn. You can read more about the award here.

Enjoy listening to the podcast.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

New Global Citizenship Video

ulrikehaug — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:22:00 GMT

We have just released an updated version of our ‘Global Citizenship in EMEA’ video and I would like to invite you to watch it and leave your comments.

In the video, HP managers in charge of environmental responsibility, social investment, supply chain responsibility and privacy describe what HP does in their area of global citizenship.

Let me know what you think and if you know of any CSR videos by other companies that you find worth watching.

Ulrike Haug, CSR Stakeholder Programmes, HP EMEA

Global Citizenship Timeline available

jeanne2007 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:11:00 GMT

I just want to quickly announce that we have just published a Global Citizenship Timeline. The timeline summarises our history of Global Citizenship by showing the most important milestones since the first charitable donation in 1940, the company’s 2nd year of existence. You can access the timeline here.

Enjoy.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

EU Competitiveness Report highlights CSR as cutting edge factor

jeanne2007 — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:05:00 GMT

As you might have heard the European Union launched the European Competitiveness Report last month. The great news is that this is the first time that the report includes a chapter on corporate social responsibility. This is worth talking about.

Since 1999 the European Commission has published an annual competitiveness report which provides an overview of the economic performance and competitiveness of the European Union region. It elaborates on drivers of competitiveness such as foreign direct investments and trade openness.

For the first time ever, a chapter on CSR has been included this year, which once more underlines the importance of CSR for business and the economy in general. Highlighting the Lisbon Agenda, the EU has emphasised the important role that CSR plays for social and economic development.

The report makes clear that CSR especially influences three competitiveness factors: human resources, risk and reputation management and innovation. This sounds completely plausible to me.

To be competitive, a corporation must have a strong team of employees. If a company has a good reputation for being a good corporate citizen, it will attract the right talent. An employee will want to be proud of being part of a company and will want to identify himself with that company, its values and also its CSR approach.

I notice more and more that students (and potential future employees) look hard at the CSR approach of companies and investigate how companies deal with different societal challenges, such as the current economic slow down or climate change. I am assuming it must be obvious how risk and reputation management is influenced by CSR. We live in an information society where nearly everything a company does becomes transparent. Corporations are under permanent public scrutiny and we have seen in the past how a company’s reputation can suffer if it does not adequately deal with CSR-related issues. The key is to be as transparent as possible and to proactively approach any issues that might arise.

A clear example is an open and transparent supply chain management approach. Last Spring, HP disclosed the names of our first tier suppliers and this will hopefully trigger other corporations to follow suit.

Finally, innovation is an important competitiveness driver that can be equally and positively influenced by CSR. CSR opens the door to establishing dialogue between different stakeholders and it encourages collaboration.

Confronted with non-optimal working conditions along the supply chain, HP joined forces with international institutions and non-governmental organisations to look for new innovative approaches to maintaining a socially and environmentally sound supply chain. Just a couple of weeks ago the CSR Europe Laboratory on Responsible Supply Chain Management launched an online portal which provides an overview of existing supply chain practices and consists of useful tools that small and medium sized enterprises can use.

The CSR chapter of the EU competitiveness report ends by saying that, if a company ignores CSR, then it misses opportunities for competitiveness gains. That is a strong statement and the message is clear: CSR is a ‘must-have’ for companies in operating today’s business world who want to be the most competitive and the most successful!

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

2008 – strong partnerships are a key success factor

jeanne2007 — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:10:00 GMT

Wow, time goes by quickly! As I look back on an exciting year, I would like to review some highlights of CSR at HP EMEA and I would also be keen to hear about your 2008 highlights. I think we can be particularly proud of what we have achieved with our partners in the areas of education and environment this year.

We have worked with WWF for more than a year now to investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) can help to combat climate change. This summer we published the ‘Low Carbon IT Solutions’ guide which summarises how carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can be reduced by using HP products.

A second environmental highlight is our e-waste project in Africa. ICT products can help to reduce carbon emissions but, at the end of their lifecycle, reuse or recycling is a critical factor in reducing the environmental burden. During the year we joined forces with the Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF), the Swiss Institute for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and Recover-e-Alliance, Wasteplan and the Salesian Institute to investigate state-of-the-art recycling practices of electronic equipment and to evaluate further methods of how recycling processes can be approved. This is an exciting project and I hope to share updates with you early next year.

Talking about Africa, I would also like to highlight our collaboration with UNESCO. We have been working with UNESCO for a couple of years to alleviate brain drain in Africa. My colleage Arnaud introduced you to this programme some time ago. We are working with five universities in Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Zimbabwe to connect researchers who have left Africa with researchers who are still on the African continent to exchange knowledge and foster relationships.

Let me turn to our education highlights, which are also the result of strong partnerships. Our GET-IT (Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT) programme has really flourished in 2008. In addition to a successful partnership with MEA-I, we have also been working with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) since May to expand our GET-IT programme in Africa. With such a strong and reliable partner at hand, I am sure we can provide a lot of young graduates in African countries with useful business and IT skills which will help them to establish their own small enterprises and develop their job careers.

In the Autumn we successfully organised our first annual GET-IT conference in Brussels. As Daniela has summarized, the conference was a great success and we received valuable feedback from GET-IT participants, our partners and local non-governmental organisations. We have set high targets regarding GET-IT for the coming year. I am eager to reach all of them and I promise to share our achievements with you.

These are just a few of our highlights for 2008. If you would like to read more about our 2008 achievements, please go here.

I hope you have enjoyed our blogs in 2008 and I would like to invite you to send me any suggestions of what you would like to read more about in 2009.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Economic slow down and CSR

jeanne2007 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:28:00 GMT

Looking at the current economic slow down and the prospects for 2009, you might ask yourself: “What does this mean for CSR strategies and related programmes?”

Even if the business outlook is not promising at the moment and resource situations seem to be pretty tough, there is a strong likelihood that companies with solid CSR strategies will come through the economic crisis on a sound footing and that they might even be able to demonstrate clearly the strong contributions that CSR practices have made and can make to business success.

I found a very interesting video message on this from Stephen Howard from Business in the Community http://vcr.csrwire.com/node/12017. It is in tough economic conditions that businesses look even harder for ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors and to become more attractive to customers and talented employees. In a global consumer study, customers expressed clearly what their expectations are.

If companies want to realise their opportunities, they may well come up with stronger strategies for when the economic crisis is over. Companies that have invested years in building up their CSR credentials will not throw that away lightly. Indeed, aborting commitments now would create a reputation for being superficial and deceptive. Once created, a negative reputation would be very hard to shake off. "It takes twenty years to build a reputation," says Warren Buffet, ‘and it can be lost in five minutes".

Hard times do not mean reversing long-term commitments to sustainability and business responsibility, especially if companies use their entrepreneurial spirit and creativity. Interesting insights on this are available in the white paper ‘Making the case for continued success during an economic downturn’ (include link, see below). I would be interested to get any additional thoughts from you on this:

When the going gets tough...

London, November 20th 2008 - The White Paper ‘Making The Case For Continued Success During An Economic Downturn’, issued today by the European Business Awards and sponsored by leading credit insurer Atradius, concludes that businesses most likely to prosper during these challenging economic times are not those that are overly cautious, but entrepreneurial businesses that take calculated risks and question prevailing conventional wisdom.

The White Paper examined the characteristics of the Ruban d’Honneur winners (the accolade handed to 70 of Europe’s top businesses) that have prospered through international trade operations. The report highlighted three factors most likely to be exhibited by companies that flourish during an economic downturn:
• The ability to see opportunity where others see only risk
• A high level of competence in evaluating risk and mitigating against the downside
• A strong entrepreneurial spirit, characterised by determination, fast decision making and flexibility

Phil Forrest, Chairman of the European Business Awards Judging Panel and author of the White Paper, says: “In the process of observing these businesses over the past few months, their reaction to the changing economic landscape has been impressive. All have rigorously checked that their operations are in good health to weather any economic storms. But the outstanding feature of these companies has been their focus on looking for opportunities to expand and grow. ‘Most businesses will approach an economic slowdown by cutting costs, from sales and marketing to research and development. This might help them to get through a tough economic cycle, but they will have a lot of ground to make up on those businesses that have been positive, growth orientated and opportunistic.”

White Paper pdf.
White Paper film