Triple Pundit, one of the leading media platforms that reports on corporate responsibility and sustainability news, has featured Symantec’s Senior Director of Corporate Responsibility, Cecily Joseph, in its weekly column Women in CSR.
The column features interviews with leading female CSR practitioners highlighting what inspires them and how they found their way to careers in sustainability. Following is an excerpt from the article where Cecily discusses the evolution of CSR at Symantec:
3p: How has the sustainability program evolved at your company?
CJ: I have been with Symantec for about eight years, and during this time have seen our sustainability program evolve to become more formal and fully integrated with the company’s business purpose. When I first joined Symantec, there were some great teams conducting work on a regional level, but we lacked a global, cohesive approach. We worked to develop a more intentional, international approach, while also being careful to preserve a regional outlook. We are very sensitive to the fact that different regions have different priorities and needs when it comes to creating sustainability programs.
In order to take our sustainability program to the next level, we joined the United Nations Global Compact, a strategic policy initiative for businesses committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. We adopted this framework as our global approach to sustainability.
From there, we began official reporting to identify material issues and focus areas. Through these efforts we began to develop individual programs relevant to Symantec, building out our own enhanced environmental framework and program pillars – IT infrastructure and green IT, conservation, transportation, software packaging and delivery. We built green teams, created a stewardship council and conducted Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reporting. Through these strategic efforts we developed programs with measurable outcomes, regional areas of focus and a global framework to tie all initiatives together. We have taken this approach not only for sustainability, but also for our other CR focus areas.
Concerning gender and diversity, for example, we adopted the Women’s Empowerment Principles, created goals around the various principles, and therein became much more formal and intentional around our approach to increase diversity at Symantec and empower women to work in technology.
Cyber awareness is a major focus for Symantec, given our business purpose of managing and protecting information online. We plan a variety of community events around Cyber Security Awareness Month and cyber awareness in general, using every opportunity to educate people about how to be safe online and protect themselves against cybercrime. We provide a variety of educational tools and information to empower individuals and support victims of cybercrime. While this endeavor may simply seem like good business, it extends beyond that into CR when we provide free products, software and support to help protect the people who matter to us and their information.]
The full article is available at: http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/07/women-csr-cecily-joseph-symantec/
Lora Phillips is Symantec's Senior Manager, Corporate Responsibility.