Atea Sustainability Focus: Accelerating and streamlining the sustainability efforts of the global IT industry, SDG 12 and SDG 17
Description
Taking responsibility for its size and position in the Nordic market, and its strong partnerships with leading IT brands, value-added reseller Atea wanted to spearhead an acceleration in the IT sustainability journey, by improving the quality and precision of customer demands, balancing out customers ambition and industry possibilities and thus creating effective incremental change.<br />
Atea Sustainability Focus is a platform for dialogue between the IT industry and the largest IT buyers. The aim is to consolidate customer demands, through which the buyers identify the single most urgent priority for the industry to address and provide concrete recommendations to the industry.
Main objectives<br />
To accelerate and streamline the sustainability work of the global IT industry by providing the Responsible Business Alliance with intelligence on what Nordic IT buyers, the most demanding in the world, identify as the single most urgent sustainability aspect for the industry to address. <br />
To provide concrete recommendations to the industry, consolidating the experience of sustainability leaders across the region.<br />
To make customer demands more effective and relevant by providing a platform for education, knowledge sharing and dialogue between IT buyers and the industry. <br />
To raise awareness of the importance of sustainable IT and its challenges in order to spur engagement among IT buyers. <br />
With the initiative, Atea also hopes to inspire other companies in our region to take global leadership by providing cross-industry and/or industry-wide platforms for customer–supplier dialogues. <br />
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Background<br />
The last years have seen an exponential increase in sustainability demands within public and private procurement, especially in IT with many public and private buyers accelerating their path towards digitization. Although positive, it is concerning that the requirements tend to be very diverse and spread. This can result in a lack of consistency and an increase in compliance costs for both reseller, brands and their suppliers, resources that could be better spent advancing sustainability outcomes for people and planet. In some cases, the demands also highlight a misunderstanding of both the issues, the complexity of the supply chain and of the sustainability maturity of the companies involved.<br />
Atea wanted to spearhead an acceleration in the IT sustainability journey by improving the focus, quality and precision of customer demands, balancing out customers ambition and industry possibilities and thus creating effective incremental change.<br />
Atea established Atea Sustainability Focus, a platform for consolidating customer demands, through which the Nordic market identifies the single most urgent priority for the IT industry to address and provides concrete recommendations to the industry.<br />
Through an annual online survey (ASF Customer Dialogue) and an annual conference (ASF Forum), Atea gathers the views of some 500 IT decision makers, procurers and sustainability specialists. <br />
The results, summarized by a third party, are then analyzed and discussed by a group of IT and sustainability leaders (ASF Advisory Board), during a 3-day meeting with the objective of defining the yearly focus and a clear set of recommendations. The results are consolidated in the ASF report which is handed over to the global IT industry’s sustainability coalition, the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA).
Stakeholder dialogue
IT buyers in public and private organizations prioritize sustainability aspects through an online survey.
Industry analysis
A third party conducts an industry analysis of the three most prioritized areas
Formulate recommendations
The ASF Advisory Board, composed of leading professionals in IT and sustainability, selects the focus area and develops recommendations to the industry.
Handover to the industry
The result is handed over to the RBA who decide on specific activities.
Facilitating dialogue
At ASF Forum, IT buyers and leading RBA members meet and disucss the most impactful demands that can be placed on the industry.
The first report – with the main recommendation that RBA and member companies deepen their transparency efforts and develop a common reporting framework around core material issues for the industry – was launched in January 2018, delivered personally to RBA:s Bob Mitchell.
In May 2018, Atea was invited to the RBA Leadership Circle to discuss the report, in the context of the discussions around a common impact-monitoring framework for RBA and members sustainability programs.
At ASF Forum 2018, we had the honor of having Noble Peace Prize winner, Dr. Denis Mukwege, as keynote speaker, along with sustainability executives from six leading IT brands, including a Taiwanese ODM addressing Nordic buyers for the first time. RBA, the Global Reporting Initiative, ASF Advisory Board and one of the top Swedish sustainability leaders (Mattias Goldman) completed the line-up of the two-day event, which also dived into what concrete and impactful demands can be placed on the industry around transparency and impacts.
In the fall of 2018, RBA:s CEO Rob Lederer sent a formal response to the ASF Advisory Board, reporting on how the organization has proceeded with the recommendations in the first ASF Report. To be mentioned is the RBA:s cooperation with GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) to provide standardized reporting guidelines relating the outcomes of two of RBA:s flagship initiatives: Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) and Responsible Labor Initiative (RLI). In the letter, Rob Lederer also writes: You can be confident that transparency is top of mind within the RBA membership and it is being integrated into the work that we do at all levels. We see the value in the collective recommendations of an industry, such as the ASF board, and we encourage you to continue to filter your recommendations to us.
The second ASF Report is underway and will be launched at the third ASF Forum in March, where the internationally known professor in environmental science Johan Rockström will be one of the keynote speakers.
By engaging companies to use their collective buying power and by using dialogue as the main instrument, great impact can be had at a low cost. Atea Sustainability Focus allows Nordic companies, although small on a global scale, to make a real difference by using the fact that they are frontrunners in sustainability.
The response from the RBA and the measures taken based on the first ASF report are proof that it is possible to accelerate the sustainability efforts of a global industry by coming together and speak with a joint voice.
During 2019, Atea plans to increase the number of dialogues in order to give the industry and the IT buyers more opportunities to meet and learn from each other, and by that enable standardized and more effective customer demands.
With the initiative, Atea also hopes to inspire other companies in our region to take global leadership by providing cross-industry and/or industry-wide platforms for customer–supplier dialogues.
The key take aways from Atea Sustainability Focus are that companies on a relatively small market in a distant region can move a global industry and at the same time make their own sustainability work and purchasing processes more efficient and effective by joining forces and initiate a dialogue. Or as Åsa-Pia Folkesdotter of Ikea, member of the ASF Advisory Board says: Atea Sustainability Focus is a fantastic initiative and the need for positive change in this area is substantial – for people and the environment, in issues of matter as well as social conditions. This forum is important to create change, together we can make a difference. <br />
Or as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr Denis Mukwege, said at ASF Forum in July: I think what Atea is doing is really, really a way of making people aware of what’s happening and to take responsibility.
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Contact Information
Camilla Cederquist, Project manager sustainability