Kim McMann joined BT as President of both the US and Canada region and our newly formed Consumer Packaged Goods vertical in November 2010. In this blog post she shares some thoughts about how she is approaching CSR in her role.

I joined BT because of our leadership in providing networked IT services globally, in an exciting market that is growing and changing rapidly – not to mention our strong portfolio of offerings and a leadership team that is committed to service excellence.   But I was also proud to join a company with such a strong CSR and sustainability reputation and am continually looking for opportunities to build on that reputation through both our employees and our customer relationships.

CSR is a powerful tool for business as well as for society and the environment.  IT and telecommunications are in themselves critical infrastructure components for successful societies and economies.  Who could envisage economic and societal growth without these technologies?  So just being in this field in the first place carries with it valuable societal contribution.   But we can enhance that by ensuring our people remain close to our communities and to the challenges our communities face.

BT US and Canada employees are involved in disaster response through our Ready When the Time Comes teams with the American Red Cross. As well as helping the community, this helps support our own disaster readiness.   We have a strong digital inclusion program with One Economy through which we have supported the launch of the Net Connectors platform.  As well as being good for society, it is in the interest of the business to have everyone on the right side of the digital divide. And for broad employee engagement we have employee charity match and volunteering programs through which we help our people support their own causes with company backing.

I am thrilled that I have been able to add two additional initiatives.

In October, BT teams across the US will participate in the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. This is a great complement to BT’s partnership with Cancer Research in the UK and will allow our BT teams to walk with others in their local communities, in support of a cause that I know has touched almost everyone either directly or indirectly. I will be proud to be walking with our team in Irving Texas. Initiatives like this one bring our people together to participate in something outside of the workplace that they feel strongly about.  We can help our people come together in a way that can be even more powerful than participating as individuals.

BT US and Canada has also joined the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which convenes global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.  We have just announced our Commitment to Action “Empowering Veterans in Transition to Civilian Workforce.”  This membership gives me the personal opportunity to collaborate with my peers from other companies, better understand the sustainability issues their companies and the planet are facing, and how business can work together with government and society to address them.

In a future post I plan to share some more thoughts on what I have learned from listening to our customers’ sustainability challenges. Meanwhile I would be really interested to hear your thoughts. Should CSR be good for business too, or should it be purely altruistic?

Yesterday and today, a high level meeting of the UNs 65^th session in NY addressed the issue of non-communicable or lifestyle diseases. Articles about these issues appeared in an Financial Times editorial yesterday and a full page in the Washington Post Health section today.

These non-communicable diseases; cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes alone account for more than half of the globes nearly 60M deaths each year. In most regions of the world that is more than HIV and malaria combined.

The four biggest causes of these deaths are tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, unhealthy diet and lack of physical exercise. All is not bad, because these products are for the most part used safely and as well as bringing positive attributes such as nutrition and even pleasure, the businesses behind them also bring  increasing economic prosperity to developing countries. A corporate responsibility/sustainability issue if ever I heard one !

But are there ICT solutions we can bring to bear to mitigate some of these problems ?

What if a consumer had a customized medical plan in the cloud, created by their doctor. It would identify for them an appropriate daily intake of nutrition and alcohol for example.   The consumer would carry with them a smart device and scan bar codes on items before use/consumption. The device zips off to the cloud and retrieves the attributes of the products. It returns data to the device, matches  it against that consumers profile and their previous consumption that day and gives them a green, amber or red light indicator on whether or not to proceed !

I know,  many hurdles, not least of all privacy and security,  network and device availability, sufficient product information.  But who would have thought a couple of years ago I would be able to retrieve instantaneous health ratings for a product. Who would have thought mobile health workers would be able to retrieve a patient’s health records on-line and on the move.   Who would have thought I would be able to trace my melon from supermarket to farm !

Corporations need to be looking for innovative solutions to societal problems. My envisaged solution may not be exactly how it turns out, but hopefully it will inspire you to think of even better ways to utilize IT and communications to solve sustainability issues.

I believe that compromise is more than just conceding on one thing we want in order to have something else we desire, but that it actually reflects the reality that we need to carefully balance perspectives to reach the optimum solution.

We tend to think that the best way to conserve wildlife stocks is to limit their use. But on NPR’s  Kojo Nnamdi show,  The Bounty of the Chesapeake Bay,  guests Steve Vilnit of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Mark Bryer of Nature Conservancy made a strong case for what initially seems counterintuitive; that encouraging local chefs to see the value of seafood from the Bay and to buy  more of it,  is exactly what is needed to preserve it for future generations. According to this theory, helping people see the value drives them to do more to protect it.

Kojo brought up the question of increased fishing and associated threat to fish stocks. His guests were clear that if we ever got to that point, it would be a much better problem to have than the one we have now; where the Bay is a sink for pollution because people don’t see the value it has for society. It is a compelling case for the counterintuitive that increasing fishing (up to a sustainable point) is a better solution for business, for society and for the environment than prohibiting fishing.

The common wisdom would have it that increasing prices for raw materials is a threat to business and so a threat to jobs.  I see a different perspective.

As a furrier, my grandfather was dependent on an extremely expensive raw material.   A customer would bring their fur coat in for a restyle and my grandfather would painstakingly cut the parts into pieces and sew them back together into a different design.  By the time my father took over the business (he is retired now, so please, no lobbying me on the fur trade) labor rates had gone up and the cost of fur had gone down.   It was far quicker and more cost effective to throw away the old material and start again. One more skilled craft job lost and one more virgin animal skin required.

The same is true in other businesses. My daughter just started in orchestra at middle school and I had to rent a cello for her. Renting a used cello is $30 per month. A new cello?   $35 per month.  It’s hard to resist for only $5.00 more.

I realize that this doesn’t necessarily translate into every sector and resource, but I cannot help but think that when I want to replace an old piece of furniture for example, it mightn’t be better both for jobs and for the environment, if the wood cost so much that it was more attractive for me to pay a skilled craftsman to fix or refresh what I already have than buy a new one.  Businesses need to think more about this as a model for success in a resource constrained environment.

This is getting too long for a blog so you will have to read about Jevon’s paradox yourself!

The moral though is the importance to sustainability and to our forms of discourse of looking past the obvious and considering the less obvious and even the counter intuitive in our thinking.

As many of my readers know, BT has formed a strategic community investment partnership with One Economy with a focus on digital inclusion in the community.  I have  written and posted about this partnership on several occasions.  In March of this year, One Economy launched the Net Connectors platform, which is one of the outcomes of our collaboration.  Shortly following the launch of the platform, in August they announced a video challenge competition.  I took the opportunity to sit down with one of the co-founders of One Economy, David Saunier to discuss our partnership and the competition.

Q: David, you are one of the founders of One Economy. I would imagine that the internet has moved on a long way since you first conceived of the organization.  How has that changed the services you deliver and the way you deliver them?

A: Indeed it has. I have recently been reflecting on this very fact. When we launched One Economy in 2000, we were attempting to use primarily one-way (or one-to-many) content distribution to help replace fractured or non-existent (off-line) social networks in low-income communities as a way to help folks with the basics of living life effectively. With the explosion of online social networking sites and crowd-sourcing of information, we now have an opportunity to help our users help one another, in addition to the information we can provide.

In the area of digital literacy content and training, we began by running offline programs to help train folks in the communities we work. We still operate this successful program, called Digital Connectors, but have now extended our efforts in this space to the online world, as well.

This is manifested in the partnership with we have with BT US & Canada to create our Net Connectors program which encourages young people to serve the same role of trainer as in our Digital Connectors program, but can be facilitated anywhere, anytime, without the need for a discreet on-the-ground program for the kids to join.

Q: We collaborated on Net Connectors over a year ago and launched it in February of this year.  What did you learn as you designed the platform?

A: You guys at BT inspired us with your UK Internet Rangers program. It was great fun identifying the transatlantic differences in terminology and style, but as you know, most importantly, we also decided to add big component of both video and user generated content.  Video is the media young people are using today.  In addition we have learned that our target audience doesn’t need to be told by us the best way to teach older generations. What they need from us is a framework and a forum to collaborate. Hence the user generated content.

Q: Can you explain how the new competition works?

A: It’s really easy. Each month we pick an activity and challenge young people to make a short video that teaches adults how to do that activity. The first month the challenge is searching for a You Tube video.  We will shortlist finalists based on user votes and then, a team consisting some folks from One Economy–and we hope you will join us also–will pick the winner for that month.

Q: How do you envisage the competition will impact the use of the Net Connectors platform?

A: Of course we hope it will draw more people to use the platform and provide us with some great additional materials. In addition, it gives our Digital Connectors and other young people a program which they can use to think about how to teach someone something you know about in logical steps, such as how to record a video and how to upload it.  So participating in the competition is an important learning experience in itself.

Q: My 12 year old can move around a mobile phone menu more adroitly than I can.  As adults, what do you and your colleagues at One Economy do to stay ahead of the young people who are still at school as you develop new media and programs?

A: Ha, that’s a good question. I suppose we spend a good amount of time cavorting with other folks in the field, who are at the cutting edge of Internet and mobile technologies at conferences, code-a-thons, and the like. But we also try to make a point of employing and spending time with young people who can help us keep a hand on the pulse of what’s next.

Q: Thanks David.  I have learned a lot from our partnership with One Economy and am looking forward to seeing the video entries and including some in a future blog post.

A: Thank you, Kevin. We at One Economy are very thankful for our relationship with BT US & Canada and the Net Connectors program that has resulted from that relationship. We plan on making you as proud of the Net Connectors program here in the States as you are undoubtedly proud of the Internet Rangers program in the UK.

It goes without saying that recessions change everyone’s priorities; individuals concerned about layoffs cut back on their spending and businesses focused on boosting profitability take similar measures at a macro level.

There’s plenty of evidence that with fears of a double dip recession that consumers are less inclined to factor in environmental and ethical considerations when making the most basic purchasing decisions.  In fact, according to a survey released this week by Bensimon Byrne, a Toronto-based advertising agency, environmental and sustainability messages were resonating with fewer consumers – with only 32% considering them to be relevant compared to 46% at the before the recession began in 2008.  As another commentator in the article put it, consumers are primarily concerned with “what’s in it for me?”

‘What’s in it for me’ continues to get us some of the way there, that is, in those cases where environmentally friendly behavior goes hand-in-hand with cost reduction for the business or for the consumer.

Many CSR programs directly contribute to cost reductions; a no-printing policy might reduce waste, but it also reduces the cost of ordering office supplies.  Similarly, teleconferencing programs that might have been touted to reduce a company’s carbon footprint are also saving millions of dollars in travel-related expenses.

The irony in looking to consumers to lead the way in solving the problem is that our consumer society has a large role to play in causing the problem. If Paul Gilding has it right in The Great Disruption (and I think he does), the recession is a symptom of a much larger sustainability issue in our lifestyles and our consumption based business models. Looking to a mass of green consumers to buy our way out of the recession is not a sustainable solution – financially or environmentally.

But I see a deeper lesson from the diminishing attention consumers are apparently paying to sustainability. Consumers, myself included, are in the business of short term gratification.  We cannot rely on consumer behavior to help us turn the corner.  Instead we need to increase our focus on investors.  Some investors are in it for the short term, but many for the long haul. Sustainability is a medium to long term challenge (although getting closer all the time) and if long term investors reward sustainable companies, the more sustainable behavior we will see.

I maintain the position I stated in a post ‘The recession could be good for sustainability’ back in 2009.  I hold out hope that this downturn is an opportunity to make a step change for the better in the way corporations approach sustainability.  After all, times of adversity provide us with opportunities for change.

I occasionally comment on examples of Information Communications Technology  (ICT)  services benefiting the environment. In fact this intersection was my original inspiration for CSRPerspective and formed the material for some of my first posts.

As I look around the community, I realized that there are many ways that ICT services impact our every day lives.  So, I’ve embarked on a video journey.  This journey takes us from inside executive offices, to transportation systems, inside grocery stores and even in my own home.

Everywhere we go, there are examples of how IT and communications are working to benefit the environment.

In this first video, I’ve worked closely with conferencing partner, Polycom to identify the benefits of video teleconferencing solutions including carbon reduction.  .

As you watch this video, and have ideas of other areas where the benefits of ICT can be correlated to sustainable objectives, please send me the idea.  I want to provide a broad array of examples during this journey.

Many years ago, before I ever knew what CSR was, I had a task to identify phone numbers in another country that were being used to carry pornographic services.  Bear with me on this!

Due to a peculiarity of the payment system for international calls at that time, a small foreign nation stood to gain a lot of money from such calls. By chance, the particular combination of international access code and country dialing code looked, to the uninitiated, like a London phone number. Cards with these numbers on them were being distributed to teenage boys in the UK, outside the gates of their schools. The boys were going home and staying on the phone for many hours, thinking they were making a UK call…until the bill came.   At the time, telco billing was quarterly and three months worth of a teenage boy’s calls to porn lines at international rates racked up quite a bill for some parents.

So, unbeknown to me, this was my first exposure to the complexities of the world of freedom of speech.  We know the numbers are misleading and targeting morally questionable services at minors, but is that sufficient reason to cut them off?

The important lesson is that the issues of cutting service are not simple.  They often involve balancing the competing claims of different value sets and moral interests and questions of precedent.

The same issues have come up in recent discussions of the right way to deal with social media in the light of such events as the London riots, actions by authorities in Egypt (and other countries) during the Arab Spring, and the action of BART in San Francisco to stop wireless service for a period on August 11 of this year. The Guardian saw this last one from the perspective of an organization trying to prevent a protest against them. BART saw it as a platform safety issue.

BARTs Web site; temporary wireless service interruption in select BART stations on Aug. 11

Guardian Web site; Bart’s attempt to kill free speech

The issues in potentially cutting off of pornographic services many years ago were technically easy but legally and morally complex.  Even today, telcos face challenges from those who want more ‘immoral’ material to be blocked, and those who see any limitations as censorship and think that all should be allowed. These are healthy discussions.

The issues today in responding to the gatherings in the Middle East, San Francisco and the UK are even more complex.  When does a peaceful demonstration become a safety concern, and when does it become a riot that intentionally endangers the public? When is safety an excuse for inhibiting simple freedom of speech?  In some cases, a response might be justified.  Others feel any interference with social media or telecoms is dangerous because of the precedent it sets.

I would also differentiate between cutting off service to all for a period of time (perhaps more akin to a curfew than to censorship), placing a restraining order on an individual and the authorities tapping into communications to determine the intentions of individuals before or after and event. Each is a different level of response and carries distinct moral hazard which has to be compared with the benefit.

The final complexity is the extent to which ones opinion depends on one’s own values and one’s perception of others’ values. Many in the western world would be more comfortable with a western government making a particular decision to cut off services than perhaps with the Chinese government or a pre-Arab Spring government making that same decision.

How do we resolve these complexities?

Perhaps one of our biggest principles of corporate responsibility – transparency – needs to come into play here. Secondly, the recognition that this is about competing ethical issues leads to a more constructive debate than characterizing the issues as black and white. And, thirdly, due process; it seems to me that one of the most important considerations is appropriate due process before services are cut by anyone.

I returned last week from a one week vacation in Ireland with my wife.   It was not an ecotourism trip by any means (does the fact our rental was a diesel count for anything?), but I did notice a few things along the way that I share below with some photographs;

For better or worse, I didn’t notice that much in the way of green advertising, but the natural green of the island more than compensates. And although I didn’t get to use it, Dublin has its own bicycle rental program Dublinbikes . You’ll see more from me about bike rental programs and the role of ICT in a forthcoming video blog.

We stayed for a one night treat at the stunning Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore.  As the name suggest, the hotel is built on the side of a cliff.  The balconies are built into a sloping green roof, so I was able to get a close up view of the cedar moss from with which it is planted.  65% of their roof space is covered is green roofing (red actually).  Pretty impressive !

Visiting the Cliffs of Moher I saw a completely different style of green roof, in the form of the visitor’s center which was built into the hills.   (Is it just me or does this look like the Teletubbie’s home ?)   Overall the organizers seem to be taking a very comprehensive approach to addressing environmental issues.

The beautiful Atlantic West coast is home to a significant number of wind farms along the hill tops between Killarney and Ennistimon for low/no carbon energy.  I think they add to the majesty of the landscape.   In contrast though, high carbon peat is still a notable part of the fuel source mix in Ireland. According to Wikipedia “At 106 g CO₂/MJ,^[8] the carbon dioxide emissions of peat are higher than those of coal (at 94.6 g CO₂/MJ) and natural gas (at 56.1) (IPCC)”

What does this add up to ?   There are many factors that contribute to differences in per capita carbon emissions, but this web site shows the carbon footprint per capita of Ireland at 10.6 metric tons and UK 9.2 metric tons compared with  USA 19.5 metric tons.

However you look at it, we have a long way to go in the USA, but bike shares and green roofing, perhaps even wind power too, are not going to make enough difference to halve our footprint.

This week I am working from London.  Although all has been peaceful on the streets I’ve been walking,  I am reading about all the violence and looting that is occurring. It seems the rioters used various social media networks to identify where to hit next.

Apparently Blackberries are a favorite for rioters because of their relatively private messaging capability. But on the positive side, clean-up crews are also utilizing social media tools to communicate and mobilize with the hashtag #riotcleanup. The corresponding website is here.   As always, IT based media can be used for good and bad.

According to this article on Computerworld, carriers will be able to use IT to make looted cell phones pretty much worthless – perhaps some consolation for the looted.

But most importantly, it is the extent to which cell phone usage information can be used to identify and perhaps convict rioters.    According to this article in the Guardian today, Everything Everywhere, which owns T-Mobile and Orange and Canadian RIM, which owns Blackberry are engaging with police to provide information under the UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. I imagine that most of us would agree with this.

Most of us though are probably appropriately dismayed when the Chinese government uses internet data from companies to identify, prosecute and imprison people communicating what they consider to be inflammatory information that leads to societal discontent.

Another article in today’s Guardian explored how different countries have viewed the UK riots.  “A widely circulated report in the People’s Daily said the riots were the “bitter fruit” of Western support of internet freedom……..the west is always supporting internet freedom and opposing other governments’ restriction on these kinds of websites. Now it is hard for them to complain.”

I guess right and wrong are, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder.

Friday 12 August post script – PM Cameron raising possiblity of blocking individuals access to social media if they are plotting violent acts. I am  not at all sure of the practicaliies of  having a judge determine this on an individual by individual basis. More important is the precedent it sets.  And when it comes to social media would a restriction like this be more akin to censorship or to imposing a curfew ?

Wednesday 17 August post script – Global Network Initiative (GNI) response to PM Cameron raising possibility of limitations 

24 August post script – GNI posted this open letter to the UK Home Secretary

A few months ago I met Nancy Gioia, Director Global Electrification at Ford Motor Company, at a sustainability meeting in DC organized by the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD). Nancy’s comments at that meeting about the role of IT and telecommunications (ICT) in supporting the use of Electric Vehicles intrigued me then and still do now.   In this guest post Mike Tinskey – Ford’s global manager for electric vehicle infrastructure –  explains how ICT infrastructure will support the user experience.  

By Mike Tinskey, Global Manager, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure at Ford Motor Company

While the 1990s don’t feel like too long ago, from a technology perspective it is light years behind where we are now – especially when looking at electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. In the 1990s, you probably didn’t know where charging stations were located outside your city, and if you did know where to find one – you wouldn’t know if they were being used, how to get there, or even IF you could even get there.

Fast forward 20 years.  Aside from an abundance of new electrified vehicles coming to market, what else has changed?

To put it simply, EV infrastructure has gotten “connected” and it has made a world of difference.  Through advancements in IT, electric vehicles, like the new Focus Electric, can identify where charging stations are located and whether or not there is enough range to get there.  There is even a way the car can communicate with the charging station to see if it is in use, make a payment, or select stations that can accept a reservation so you know the spot will be available when you get there.

At Ford, we are taking advantage of advancements in IT to build smarter electric vehicles as well as work with technology companies, utilities and municipalities to develop the best possible EV infrastructure in cities around the world.

How are we doing it?

By using the Ford EV “Cloud,” Ford is creating applications for drivers of our electric vehicles to allow them to use smartphones to reserve charging stations, pre-condition batteries, identify whether trips to stores or work are within range, and schedule charging during the lowest possible rates through a new value charging program.

A lot can happen in 20 years.  In the EV world, there has been new battery chemistry and charging advancements, but it may be the impact of IT on infrastructure that helped put a charge in making these vehicles a viable driving option.

For more information about the Focus Electric and Ford’s electric vehicle strategy, visit www.facebook.com/fordelectrifiedvehicles.