posted by Suzanne Fallender on August 27, 2009
One of the things that I love about working at Intel is the support and encouragement provided for employees to volunteer at local schools and non-profits. Truth be told, I would probably volunteer regardless of the support I get from Intel, but I have to say that the flexibility I’m afforded in my schedule to sometimes volunteer during work hours and the fact that all of my hours are matched with dollars from the Intel Foundation, makes it a whole lot better.
So, with this support, I have been serving on the board of directors of a local non-profit organization Tempe Community Council, or TCC. TCC manages programs and provides support to non-profit agencies to meet social service needs in the community, from food banks to transitional housing programs to domestic violence shelters. I am so proud of this organization and the work that it does to connect people who care with people in need, which these days is hard to wrap my head around. I’m always on the look-out for other ways to channel my support to TCC where I can. Earlier this year, I ran (ok well, partly ran, partly limped) a half marathon to raise money to help fundraise. Intel’s new Vote for a Cause campaign gave me another potential way to help provide visibility and support for my favorite non-profit (and a way that is much easier on my knees…).
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tagged: #csr, #VFAC, Facebook, Intel, Tempe Community Council, volunteering
posted by Gary Niekerk on August 25, 2009
By: Tod Arbogast, Director of Sustainable Business, Dell; Judy Glazer, Director of Global Social and Environmental Responsibility Operations, HP; Gary Niekerk, Director of Global Citizenship, Intel; Mike Loch, Director of Supplier Corporate Responsibility, Motorola
You may have recently read about the atrocities occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC holds vast sources of minerals; unfortunately, some of the profits derived from extracting these minerals are linked to groups reported to be committing serious human rights violations.
Minerals such as tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold, used in numerous industries including aerospace, automotive, electronics and jewelry, are extracted in the DRC, among other locations. In the electronics industry, the mining of these minerals takes place many layers before a final product is assembled, making it difficult if not impossible to trace the minerals’ origins.
As the electronic products our companies manufacture do contain these materials, and some of them could potentially originate from conflict regions of the DRC, Dell, HP, Intel and Motorola are jointly hosting a multi-industry forum to help develop transparency, accountability and assurance mechanisms in the supply chain of extracted metals.
This forum, set for Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the BSR conference in San Francisco, aims to help us learn from those who’ve made this journey before and established certification processes for their suppliers. We will hear from those mapping their supply chain down to the mines, and from mining and smelting operations that are conducting business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. We hope this forum will help determine what actions we need to take to move forward on this important issue.
We already expect our suppliers, wherever they operate, to meet our standards for socially and environmentally responsible operations. That said, ensuring that our supply chain does not contribute to human rights violations in the DRC, or any other country, requires cooperation and commitment within every layer of the supply base. If you’re a decision maker in a company whose products contain these minerals, or if you have influence in the area of corporate responsibility in your corporation, we encourage you to join us in this important discussion at BSR.
Finding a solution will require a force larger than any one company or industry, and we invite you to participate. Please confirm your attendance with Stephanie Nelson.
posted by John Skinner on August 17, 2009
Some of my prior blogs have discussed the opportunity for society to solve some of our planet’s environmental challenges, by more effectively harnessing advances in technology. New academic research is emerging which helps clarify some of these opportunities.
I recently had the opportunity to read 3 new whitepapers from Dr. Jonathan Koomey, research scientist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University, and starting this fall, with Yale University. You should be aware that while Intel and Microsoft provided financial support for this particular set of research, Dr. Koomey’s papers represent his own views. This trilogy of papers is noteworthy in that they discuss 3 inter-related trends, which I think have implications for how society manages its stewardship of both technology and the environment.
Trend #1: Continuous advancement of computational energy efficiency, in terms of Computations per Watt of energy used.
Trend #2: The consolidation of computers into powerful, large scale computing utility centers, which can be accessed anywhere, a.k.a. Cloud Computing.
Trend #3: The effective harnessing of computer technologies to achieve improved net environmental outcomes, including Carbon Reduction and De-materialization.
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tagged: CSR, Dr. Jonathan Koomey, eco-technology, environment
posted by Suzanne Fallender on August 10, 2009
One of the topics that keeps coming up in discussions with my counterparts in corporate responsibility departments at other companies is employee engagement around CSR and sustainability. As corporate responsibility matures within major global brands, one of the next big challenges is how to drive CSR and sustainability deeper into the corporate culture and engage all employees, not just employees with “CSR” type jobs like EHS engineers, community relations, supply chain responsibility, or corporate diversity.
But what does this look like in practice? How do you communicate sustainability goals and objectives to 80,000 employees in 50 countries? How do you tap into and align grassroots efforts already underway? How do you give employees who are passionate about the environment and community service a voice and opportunities to take action?
Over the past year, a number of groups internally have been working to take our internal employee communications and engagement around CSR to the next level - including creating a new internal employee portal/online community forum where employees can connect on environmental sustainability activities. It’s somewhat of a daunting task and of course we’re looking at this as a long-term initiative - but we’re already seeing some good results. Our “Green Intel” online community has gained some 1,500 members in just three months since we launched it, making it the largest single employee group on Intel’s internal community platform. A team is currently evaluating employee-submitted ideas for possible implementation later this year.
I wanted to share two other recent examples from our internal engagement plans. First is the example above of a video by Will Swope, Intel’s VP of Sustainability, which was rolled out to all employees through the employee portal last week. The video above (tapping into Will’s passion and his willingness to be goofy for a good cause) spawned good employee comments, including suggestions of specific actions that Intel or employees could take to further reduce energy use across the company. For a second video of Will talking with employees about solar, click here.
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tagged: #CSR, employee engagement, Intel, sustainability, Will Swope
posted by Suzanne LeGette on August 06, 2009
What if you could make a difference, help make the world a better place, by simply turning on your computer? Intel has joined forces with Facebook so you can do just that. Together they are offering a new application that can turn your spare computer processing power into computing energy for organizations seeking to fight disease and study climate change. How? Processor power is donated from your CPU to organizations such as Rosetta@home, which uses that energy to help find cures for diseases such as HIV and Alzheimer’s. Check out the Progress thru Processors Facebook page for more details and find out how your CPU can use its idle time to power these worthy efforts.
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tagged: CPU, CSR, Engineering, Facebook, Processors
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