Cross-industry member companies convened at Cisco’s Norway HQ for the latest Sustainability Forum, with presentations and discussions addressing digitization as a means towards sustainable solutions and pitfalls of human rights policy implementations, or lack thereof.
Elisabeth Brandasu
Sustainability Lead EMEA-North
Oliver Stern
Managing Director – Investigations, Diligence and Compliance practice / Head Business Intelligence team (London)
Steinar Iversen, VP of Engineering & Head of Collaboration Devices Engineering at Cisco welcomed participants, introducing the venue that includes their Oslo Experience Center, housing Europe’s largest Cisco R&D hub, with 500 employees comprised of engineers, the supply chain team, customer center, and other functions. A key attribute of the digital tools and services delivered is their intrinsic facilitation of remote work that ultimately lessens the environmental impact of transportation.
Elisabeth Brandasu, Sustainability Lead EMEA-North at Cisco, presented a report co-written with Global Counsel that can serve as a framework to address the opportunities that digital technologies can play in supporting EU and global energy efficiency goals, while operating amidst monumental geopolitical uncertainty and large policy shifts.
At the core of Cisco’s strategy of moving toward a more regenerative future is an inclusive approach to digitizing the world, as outlined in Cisco’s Purpose Report. Brandasu explained how the company is maintaining laser-focus on their technology becoming the catalyst for other organizations to become more sustainable using circular design principles. Technology underpins progress, and “AI is the promise of this era,” but, as noted by Brandasu, represents an associated increased energy usage.
“AI is the promise of this era.”
Brandasu presented four main critical enablers; ‘Electrification,’ ‘Sustainable AI and Data Centers,’ ‘Energy Efficient Hardware and Digital Infrastructure’ and ‘Digital & Sustainability Skills’ – stressing the increasingly important role of academic institutions on qualifying the future generation to be equipped to confront sustainability challenges.
Celebrating its 40-year anniversary last year, Cisco is a global leader within IT and network operations, developing, manufacturing, and selling networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other technology services and products.
Kroll is a leading provider of financial and risk advisory solutions and performs proactive, deep dive human rights diligence work in challenging markets as well as litigation support cases for clients facing allegations of wrongdoing.
What is the importance of human rights related risk identification and mitigation as part of commercial decision making? To answer this, Oliver Stern, Managing Director in the Investigations, Diligence and Compliance practice and Head of the Business Intelligence Kroll team based in London, drew from his extensive experience leading a wide range of investigations for corporations and financial institutions to prevent adverse human rights impacts for companies and investors.
Kroll views their work through the prism of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, assessing the real impact of communities on a granular level. The EU CSRD and CS3D requires consideration not only of product manufacture in the supply chain, but also the impact of economic activities on the communities in which one operates.
Though human rights policies are in place for companies to adhere to and operate by, “the policy itself is not the determining factor,” Stern concluded, as some businesses will rather be driven by cost and availability of capital for decision-making, only implementing the human rights policies if they increase access to capital.
“The policy itself is not the determining factor."
Companies may find themselves in a precarious situation, risking fines, if they rely on agencies to find labor, combined with making claims related to their human rights policies. The policies can be communicated, but also need to be integrated, tracked, and assessed to avoid being faulted by auditing bodies. Opting for an opaque supply chain is associated with high risk.
Future success is dependent upon running a sustainable business – for people, planet, and profit. Hence, AmCham brings select, cross-industry member company representatives together on an ongoing basis to discuss opportunities, facilitate open exchange and determine how AmCham members can best contribute to Norwegian and US sustainability agendas going forward.
Please read more about our Sustainability Forum and contact Margrethe.Harboe@amcham.no for interest in future meetings.
AmCham Sustainability Forum – Digital Efficiency & Human Rights Policies Cross-industry member companies convened at Cisco’s Norway HQ for the latest Sustainability Forum, with presentations
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