Nokia Siemens Networks

Corporate responsibility? It's everyone's responsibility now

It’s not easy being green, but these days it’s absolutely essential.

Corporate responsibility is no longer the bolt-on addition to a company’s overall vision but now plays a pivotal role – not only with respect to environmental policy, but all aspects of a company’s business decision-making.

A June, 2009 article in the Financial Times sums this up quite nicely: “For many companies, sustainability is becoming part of daily business – whether that is cutting their energy bills or shoring up ethical sourcing guidelines – and therefore has a variety of implications for management teams.”

With this in mind, it is understandable that boardroom discussions are also changing. Research by the FT discovered that, in the past year, nine out of ten companies had board-level discussions about corporate responsibility of sufficient depth to merit inclusion in the minutes, and the number of board members with responsibility for specific aspects of corporate responsibility had also increased.

And it does matter, not only for good PR and as a way to recruit bright, socially responsible new employees, but to the bottom line too. Research organization Ipsos MORI discovered that companies participating in the FT’s CR Index outperformed their FTSE 350 peers on total shareholder return between 2002 and 2007 by between 3.2 per cent and 7.7 per cent a year.

“Leadership from the top is essential,” says Professor David Grayson, head of Cranfield School of Management’s Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility. “You need the top-down messages – but you also need an empowered workforce from which innovation and ideas can bubble up. It’s not a case of ‘either, or’, the genius is getting both.”

Industry opportunities

Telecommunications is in a unique position to reduce the environmental impacts of other industries. Corporations in our industry can:

• Make operations more efficient, using monitoring and optimization technologies

• Dematerialize physical products, replacing them with electronic versions

• Enable environmentally friendly services

• Decrease the need for travel and transport

Simon Beresford-Wylie, Chief Executive Officer of Nokia Siemens Networks commenting that “Ethical behavior and corporate responsibility are not standalone activities; they are an inseparable part of our daily work and determine how we operate.”

Beresford-Wylie spoke at the publication of a new report emphasizing the environmental  and other corporate responsibility accomplishments of Nokia Siemens Networks in 2008.

Some of Nokia Siemens Networks environmental achievements in 2008 include:

• 88% of solid waste was reused, recycled or used as energy

• 17% of the electrical energy for Nokia Siemens Networks facilities came from renewable sources compared to 10% in 2007

• The greenest car policy in Finland reduced average emissions of new company cars down from 180g/km to 140g/km

• 10% reduction in the number of business-related miles flown by employees

• Energy consumption of the company’s real estate operations was reduced by 12% and CO2 emissions by 13%

 “Our customers and other stakeholders are increasingly aware of, and supportive of action in the area of corporate responsibility,” said Beresford-Wylie. “The report gives us an excellent way to proactively and transparently communicate our achievements.”

Has your company recently implemented a corporate responsibility program, or increased its role within your organization? Please register below and tell us about it.