By Sustainability team
14th February 2012.
12:26
Tag Archives: CSR
This is one of the things that you can read about in our brand new 2011 Sustainability report just published on our website. In the report you will find more information about our GreenHeart™ credentials, how we work with critical substances, our carbon footprint, Lifecycle Analysis, Community Engagement activities and much more.
Today Greenpeace released the 17th version of its Guide to Greener Electronics. In the guide they have ranked 15 manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones and TVs according to the following categories; Energy and Climate, Greener Products and Sustainable Operations. Sony Ericsson was ranked 6th place, scoring 4.2 out of 10, placing us at the top amongst the Android™ smartphone players.
In this edition, Greenpeace has changed the scoring system, introduced tougher requirements and updated many criteria. New criteria were also added, raising the bar for the manufacturers. Overall, the new ranking has stronger focus on energy and climate issues. (more…)
As we wrote in our earlier blog post, Sony Ericsson China invited 10 students from the Sony Ericsson Hope Schools to visit Beijing and participate in the Beijing Marathon.
At 9 o’clock in the morning on the day of the Marathon, the ten students and Sony Ericsson employees including Magnus Ahlqvist, President of Sony Ericsson Greater China, set off in the race. Many Sony Ericsson employees had gathered to cheer for the runners and held up banners for them on both sides of the road. (more…)
The sustainability work of Sony Ericsson does not only revolve around substance control and reducing our environmental impact, it also includes community engagement. That is why we thought it was about time to post something a bit less “technical”.
As you may know, Sony Ericsson is involved in the development of education in China through the Hope School project. In 2009 and 2010, Sony Ericsson funded the building of two Hope Primary Schools, one in the Sichuan Province and one in the Shanxi Province. In 2011, we continue to support the Hope School project by funding another Hope School! This time in the Hebei Province. (more…)
The title of the article in today’s the times is “Mobile phones ‘built on slave labour ”. Thank you for highlighting this topic.
Sony Ericsson does not benefit from the horrific situation in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The price for metals is set by the metal market and the amount originating from illegal sources is not enough to influence the price of metals. Rebel groups or other parties exploit the unstable situation in the region and reap the benefits.
Will a law in US or other places make any difference? Most of the activities surrounding so called conflict minerals in DRC are already illegal e.g. there are laws in DRC against child labor as well as for workers protection but the upholding of laws in the area is limited to say the least.
Problems with political and economic stability, rebel groups, respect for human rights, respect for the law, corruption etc blight the country and I fear that if the situation in DRC and surrounding countries is not improved then any system or attempt to trace conflict minerals will be challenging if not impossible. However, raising awareness about the topic is important. Pushing for attention and change in the supply chain will shed more light on the issue and bring more attention to the rebel groups’ operations, but ultimately it will take more than this to solve the problem.
Margot Wallström (previously EU commissioner now UN Secretary General Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict) wrote a petition in a Swedish daily asking Sweden and EU to start process to regulate against use of conflict minerals. She writes that she see a link between the extraction of these minerals and abuse of women. The main objective of such a law would be to try to stop the illigal trade of minerals and metals from conflict regions. In US there is already a draft bill on the topic.
Sony Ericsson supports attempts to stop the trade of illegal minerals and certainly all efforts to stop the appalling conditions surrounding illegal mining. This was also discussed in a TV show this morning. It will be interesting to see if it is possible to develop any regulation that is feasible to implement and possible to enforce. This is an extremely complex and difficult topic and a law on its own will not solve the issue.
Se us dicuss this topic on Swedish National TV (sorry in Swedish);
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On an annual basis Time Magazine presents a list of the 100 people who most affect our world.
This year Matt Berg from the Millennium Village project is on the famous list. In the article the project and his work is described in the following way “ChildCount+ has been in existence for only nine months and has already reported more than 20,000 nutrition screenings, 500 cases of malnutrition and 2,000 of malaria.”
Sony Ericsson has supported the project from the start and provided the health workers with phones.
Read the article about Matt.
Storebrand one of the major pension funds in Scandinavia arranged a very interesting conference on CSR focusing on conflicts and running business under difficult conditions. I was invited to talk about Sony Ericsson our approach to sustainability and how we have worked with supply chain. Specifically how to manage extractives and raw materials where we have no direct relation and therefore limited control.
Conference program and presentations can be found on the Storebrand home page. Some materials are in Norwegian.
Since the UN report on tantalum was published in 2001 there has been a lot of debate over raw materials extraction and the role mobile phones especially in Congo (DRC).
Let me start by saying that Sony Ericsson welcomes these types of reports and share the concern for the conditions in the whole supply chain. Reports from authorities and organization highlight these topics that are important both to us and to our customers. We also consider this to be part of the GreenHeart work as an integral part of the whole area of sustainability. As part of Ericsson we developed and launched (as far as we know) the first supplier Code of Conduct in electronics industry back in 1998.
Sony Ericsson recognizes that we have responsibility for the whole supply chain. However, it is also true that the further away from a direct relationship the less impact we have. We can influence and work effectively with suppliers who have direct relationship. Sony Ericsson has also several times, in collaboration with first tier suppliers, worked with second as well as third tier suppliers but then mainly when our direct supplier requests support in explaining the issues and educating their suppliers. We are also participating in meetings with different organizations to try to understand and find more general solutions to the problems in the supply chain e.g. latest arranged by Good Electronics in Amsterdam in May (http://goodelectronics.org/)
The situation in Congo is complex and very difficult to influence. There is a wide spread poverty and corruption (144 place out of 155 countries according to Transparency International). Also conflicts and civil war that has been on and off for 50 years. Another problem to get control is traceability i.e. that it is very difficult even impossible to trace origing of metals and other basic elements when they are mixed. We believe that there needs to be industry common programs working together with independent organizations and authorities. This is also why Sony Ericsson has asked for industry common projects to be set up by associations such as GeSI and EICC where our parent companies are members.
To work on a solution for these problems and secure that no breaches to our code are taking place in the supply chain will take time. We are hopeful that knowledge, understanding and trust will lead to lasting change. But, as all change processes we are also aware that there will be positive and negative surprises along the way both at direct suppliers as well as further down the supply chain.