This piece was orginially published by Cecily Joseph on April 13, 2017 via Huffington Post.
As the political landscape evolves significantly within the US and other regions across the globe, policy and regulatory changes have people of all political backgrounds uncertain of what the future holds for some of our most critical societal issues such as climate change, community and social services, health care, diversity and more.
While corporations have historically played a role in providing societal benefits alongside the government, today we see a new trend developing, an expanding notion of responsibility amongst businesses. While corporate responsibility (CR) originally looked at the responsibility of a company to manage its own impacts on employees, the environment, and society, responsible leaders and companies are those that assess how their business and CR strategies can influence larger scale industry and global change.
In other words, the responsibility of business has moved from "me" to "we".
Current trends and activism worldwide suggest that by looking from the perspective of “we”, companies collectively can have an impact more effectively than if they go it alone. Additionally, consumers, investors, NGOs, and local communities are demanding responsible business and products, and “we” based CR strategies have business benefits. New research from Unilever shows a third of consumers are now choosing to buy from brands they believe are doing social or environmental good, while more than 12,000 Bloomberg terminal customers used ESG data in 2015, up from 1,500 in 2009.
The rise and reach of multi-stakeholder partnerships
While corporations have increased their partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over the last twenty years (examples include WWF and Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark and Greenpeace), corporations are also partnering in a new way with peers and competitors, civil society, investors, and governments, in powerful multi-stakeholder partnerships to amplify their impacts.
As an example, Symantec is at the forefront of public advocacy for industry and corporate action on LGBTQ rights through their partnership with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Through this multi-stakeholder partnership, Symantec has advocated for marriage equality, the Equality Act, and stood up against North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” in 2016 alone.
Through Sympantec’s participation in Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), we joined 900 companies and investors to sign the Business Backs Low-Carbon USA statement, a strong message to President Trump and Members of the U.S. Congress reaffirming our support for the Paris Climate Agreement and the need to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy at home and around the world.
What the science is telling us
Moving from “me” to “we” in target setting has allowed leading businesses to expand their purview to help address critical global issues in a significant way. For example, Science Based Targets, a joint initiative of The UN Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI), WWF and CDP, is helping companies set GHG reduction targets in line with what science says is necessary to meet the long-term temperature goals adopted in the Paris Agreement. 215 leading companies, including General Mills, Kellogg, Proctor & Gamble, Sony, Symantec, Walmart and Dell, have now set ambitious science-based goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
According to Dell’s Principal Environmental Strategist, John Pflueger, regarding the company’s science-based GHG emissions reduction goal, “We had goals in the past, but they had been in silos, on different time frames, and not related to each other or informed by an underlying framework. We realised that while what happened within our walls was important, our footprint extended up and down our supply chain and we needed to address that.”
Similarly, in 2016, at Symantec we set a new goal to reduce GHG emissions by 30 percent by 2025, using a 2015 base year. The goal, reflecting months of current and projected energy use and emissions analysis, as well as ecological and peer context, was intentionally ambitious and aligned with climate science to take an aggressive step towards substantive change.
Progress for “me” is often rooted in progress for “we”.
In corporate responsibility, progress for “me” is often rooted in progress for “we”. Solving internal company challenges, such as workforce diversity, is often dependent on solving global, national and regional challenges first.
For example, technology companies are facing challenges to find qualified, skilled and diverse talent for their needs. At the same time 197.7 million people are unemployed globally[1], 40% of global employers site difficulties filling jobs[2], in part due to a lack of experience and technical skills. Additionally, there is an estimated 500,000 to 1 million unfilled cyber security jobs in the United States[3] with this projected to reach 1.5 million by 2020[4].
To ensure a future pipeline of diverse, highly skilled talent, while addressing the cyber security and wider technology workforce gaps, Symantec’s Cyber Career Connection (SC3), was launched in 2014. The program provides underrepresented young adults and veterans with targeted education, training and certifications that position them to fill in-demand cyber security jobs and enter long-term careers. 300 students have been reached to date and 87% of SC3 graduates are employed in cyber security and IT jobs, or pursuing additional degrees.
Additionally, Cisco’s Networking Academy provides foundational and career-ready skills in networking and IT. Since its founding nearly 20 years ago, the program has helped more than 6.7 million students in 170 countries prepare for ICT and networking careers in a range of industries.
Responsible and responsive leaders and companies have moved their CR programs from “me” to “we”, reaching beyond their walls to join multi-stakeholder coalitions, establish company targets that account for global issues, while boosting the future strength of their own business. These leaders recognize the positive long-term business benefits of this approach. While the "we" still includes an inward assessment, together, companies will be a force for ensuring transgender equality, reducing climate change impacts, and fighting for the social and environmental causes their employees, customers, partners, and shareholders believe in.
While politics may shift, an increasing constant we can count on is that corporations recognize the value in working collectively to further their impacts for an equitable and sustainable future.
Cecily Joseph is Symantec's Vice President, Corporate Responsibility
