Why do you feel the Responsible Business Summit West is an important meeting?

It is vitally important that organizations like Oxfam meet businesses in the spaces where they gather to share knowledge and look to the future together. The private sector is a crucial actor in our society- entrusted with delivering the goods and services that allow human lives to unfold with dignity and prosperity. Companies have the power to impact lives, not only of their employees through workplace practices, but in their broader shaping of the world and culture we live in. This is a power that can have positive or negative outcomes. Events like RBS West bring together a diverse and talented cross-section of corporate America, including some of the most innovative and forward-looking leaders building solutions to our shared challenges. I am honored and excited for the opportunity to share our work and our vision with such leaders.

What are your top three priorities in 2019/20? And why are they important to your team.

1. A key priority for Oxfam is addressing the complex and destabilizing challenges of widespread inequality in our society. How can engaging with companies help solve this issue? It entails moving away from short-term goals to a long-term view of true sustainability and long-term value. Workers should have the dignity they deserve in operations and supply chains, which means they should be paid living wages, work in decent and safe conditions, and have a voice in their workplace. It means making sure we have workplaces with diversity in leadership positions, giving stakeholders beyond investors a say in how companies operate, and encouraging companies to view paying their fair share of taxes not as a penalty but as an investment in their businesses and the broader infrastructure that sustains their markets. In short, we need to build a kind of enlightened capitalism that is accountable and truly sustainable - and companies need to be in the lead in demanding and creating it.
2. One concrete priority we are working on to advance this goal is creating a new market institution to help incentivize companies to raise the wages of their U.S. employees and on-site subcontractors to a recognized living standard and celebrating those who do so. In doing so, we will create clarity on this issue for employers, investors and consumers alike. This year and next, my team is working to finalize a robust and transparent standard-setting process for this U.S. Living Wage Initiative.
3. Another key priority is our ongoing engagement with Mars Inc. Back in 2013, we challenged Mars to address gender inequality in their cocoa supply chain and now it is a core issue that they are tackling throughout their global supply chain. Not only are they fulfilling their gender commitments under our Behind the Brands campaign, with several gender assessments underway in key cocoa sourcing countries, but they are also putting women’s empowerment at the heart of their Farmer Income Lab, on which Oxfam is an advisor.
4. We are eager to engage with leading companies across all the many issues that Oxfam works on, all in service of our global anti-poverty mission.

How are businesses going to have to transform their operations to meet the needs of the customers in the future?

Customers are increasingly demanding sustainable business practices from the companies they give their hard-earned money to – and this means sustainability on more than one dimension. While we have seen positive signs of movement in the environmental space that we applaud and that must continue, too many companies are still lagging behind on issues like dignified, safe working conditions and wages sufficient to offer workers a decent livelihood; gender equality and freedom from harassment, and the right to stand up for rights without retaliation. In tomorrow’s ever more connected world, conscious and engaged consumers that are coming of age today will have little patience for excuses and exploitation – they will demand that the goods and services they pay for are delivered in ethical and sustainable ways – companies that fail to recognize this will cede their share of the marketplace to those who do.

How important is collaboration to long-term cross-industry transformation? What are you doing to deliver it?

One of the greatest challenges to the spread of sustainable business practices is the age-old collective action problem. Who will step forward and lead, facing the headwinds, scouting obstacles, and breaking through them to allow others to follow more easily? Collaboration between companies and civil society represents the best avenue to tackle this challenge. Concretely, my team is developing a credible standard for recognizing living wage employers in the U.S. The group of companies that is stepping forward to lead with us on this initiative will share the burden of those headwinds, and share also the gains in retention and recruitment, not to mention the recognition of consumers, investors and advocates who know that workers deserve a decent livelihood for their hard day’s work. This kind of cross-industry collaboration is vital to paving the way for a brighter, better future for workers and employers alike.

What excites you about the sustainability industry at present?

I am excited to see the energy and momentum that is gathering behind the core concepts of sustainability in the private sector. Companies are increasingly recognizing the need for sustainable practices, and the sustainability industry has grown to meet that need. I am especially excited to see the blossoming of a new generation of mature sustainable practices, shepherded by the diverse professionals and institutions of the sustainability industry, including the trend towards integration of sustainability and human rights into core operations, the growing understanding of the value of gender diversity and equality, and the growing certainty in c-suites that ethics and sharp business sense are by no means mutually exclusive concepts. 

Why do you feel the Responsible Business Summit West is an important meeting?

Dialogue in how to effectively manage a sustainability program is a valuable commodity. As you say on the website, Lead the clean, inclusive future. Collaborate, Innovate, Invest. I think you are working to bring together sustainability professionals to dialogue on these important topics.

Where does sustainability sit in your organization? And how are you working with other departments to deliver a sustainable future?

The FedEx Enterprise Sustainability Council (FESC) is responsible for setting and implementing our company-wide sustainability strategy and administering our CSR materiality assessments. I chair the FESC. Additionally, enterprise-wide Sustainability Impact Teams (SITs) for global vehicles, facilities, air operations, customer solutions, data/reporting, and sourcing allow our operating companies to share synergies, ideas, and innovations. The SITs and operating companies’ senior sustainability leaders report to me, as well.

To what extent are you driving sustainable innovation across the business?

At FedEx, we connect people and possibilities around the world, responsibly and resourcefully. Building on a philosophy we call Practical Sustainability, we work to multiply efficiencies, minimize impacts and apply innovative solutions to enable opportunities for our business and customers. Central to our Practical Sustainability philosophy are four interconnected building blocks — performance, transparency, innovation, and leadership — that drive strategic, transformational stewardship to strengthen our operations, grow our business, and add value to society.

How are you decoupling business growth and GHG emissions?

Reduce, Replace, Revolutionize is the global strategy that informs our approach to Practical Sustainability.

Reduce: Minimize or eliminate impacts from activities and operations. Replace: Apply the right solutions in the right applications. Revolutionize: Discover and utilize cutting-edge technologies and solutions.

Throughout the organization, our Reduce, Replace, Revolutionize strategy guides environmental efforts to drive efficient use of resources and cost savings in four key areas:

• Aircraft efficiency
• Vehicle efficiency
• Sustainable facilities
• Sustainable materials and recycling

In each of these areas, our Practical Sustainability philosophy helps us determine the right sustainability initiatives, which are then guided by input from the experts on our Sustainability Impact Teams (SITs). Collectively, these efforts have contributed to an approximately 37 percent reduction in CO2 emissions intensity (on a revenue basis) across the enterprise from FY09 to FY18, a period in which revenue grew by 84.5 percent.

How is your company leading on sustainability?

Using our Practical Sustainability building blocks of performance, transparency, innovation and leadership, along with our Reduce, Replace, Revolutionize strategy, we have focused on the following:

• Setting ambitious fuel efficiency and emission reduction targets.
• Modernizing our aircraft and vehicle fleet.
• Incorporating alternative fuels into our fleet.
• Using more purchased transportation, including interline commercial air carrier and intermodal rail transport.
• Engaging team members and customers in energy efficiency initiatives.
• Advocating for regulatory and policy changes that support emissions reduction, efficiency improvements, and cleaner technology.

You can find much more in this regard at csr.fedex.com.

Why do you feel the Responsible Business Summit West is an important meeting?

The challenges we face as a planet and the opportunities we can tackle as businesses require us to use the knowledge, strength and influence of our organizations working together to drive positive impacts. RBS brings together a collective seeking to learn more and to take action on circular economy, clean tech, inclusion and diversity and more and in order for us to drive sustainable outcomes we need to take action, together.

Where does sustainability sit in your organization? And how are you working with other departments to deliver a sustainable future?

This is actually an interesting question for my team. With all the changes at HPE, from the split from HPQ to our spinoffs and reorganizations, our sustainability team has undergone a lot of changes. We recently moved from our Marketing department to the Legal department, a move that made a lot of my team nervous, as there was a perception that we could be reduced to a compliance function. Our team is made up of leaders and innovators who strive to push the boundaries and don’t want to settle for anything. Yet this move into the Legal organization has positioned us with more support, visibility and authority than I’ve ever seen in my tenure here, with everyone from our CEO and C-suite to partnerships across our organization and even an engaged workforce who value corporate responsibility, ensuring sustainability spans our entire organization.

What kind of shift are you seeing in organization-wide strategy as sustainability becomes more of a priority for the business? What’s driving the change?

Sustainability has been a part of how we do business for decades, yet how well it’s integrated across our organization continues to evolve as more and more of our customers demonstrate how sustainability is a business priority. As billions of connected devices and people come online, our customers are struggling to adapt to a world where everything computes with increasingly less energy, materials and space for their IT solutions. Our stakeholders are emphasizing the inherent risks and the promise of technology in driving positive change in the digital age. We’re seeing an increase in sustainability-related request for proposals, driving emphasis from our investors and shareholders. Understanding this, we’ve been integrating our sustainability objectives across our entire value chain, into our overall strategy, into how we innovate as technology leaders and how we drive business outcomes.

Our CEO recognizes this and is not only pushing our organization and my team’s initiatives, but he’s publicly addressing this priority through engagements like the Tech for Good Summit in France with corporate, government and organizational leaders around the globe. Our executives are leading the charge by upholding our high ethical standards across the business, building a more inclusive culture of an increasingly diverse and empowered workforce, and imbedding our corporate sustainability goals across the business and our entire value chain. Even our employees are teaming together from around the world to phase out single-use plastics at their sites, positively challenging my team to keep up and advance more ambitious initiatives.

What are your top three priorities in 2019/20? And why are they important to your team.

Our top three priorities are: driving the circular economy, investing in people, and operating responsibly. These priorities emphasize how technological advancement has the power to advance the way we live and work through a renewed focus on sustainable innovation.

At HPE, we’re building a world where factories monitor themselves in real-time; where healthcare is personalized and genetic diseases are a thing of the past; where clean energy technologies power the economy; where women earn equal pay for equal work; where technology is secure and trusted, basic services are available to all, and everything computes. Achieving a sustainable future will require disruptive transformation across every industry. In an era of infinite connectivity coupled with finite resources, we’re partnering with our customers and stakeholders to catalyze sustainable innovation in our industry and beyond. Only together can we solve the world’s most complex challenges.

How is your company leading on sustainability?

We understand our unique position to drive sustainable innovation across the sectors, from manufacturing to utilities, healthcare to smart cities. Over this year we’ve had so much success in leveraging our sustainability leadership as a differentiator to customers that we’ve expanded our customer engagement program by 200%. This is a unique program that specifically engages customers on how they can solve their business and sustainability goals simultaneously through our efficient IT solutions, creating partnerships beyond our walls. Last year, our sustainability-focused customer engagements represented $5B USD of total revenue and contributed to over $312M USD in revenue, and I know these numbers will only increase as more of our customers seek to improve their ROI through the low carbon economy. To date, 596 companies are taking science-based climate action, 55% of company executives have gained competitive advantage from science-based targets, and HPE is ready to help our customers lead across sectors through sustainable IT solutions.

Taking a look at our sustainability commitments operationally, I think we’re leading on several fronts worth noting. Our focus areas span our entire value chain, with goals and initiatives aligned to 6 of the key United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goals. We’ve chosen 6 key areas that best position us to make the biggest impact and apply our capacity as a global technology leader. I’m proud to say that we were the first IT company to set climate-science based emissions targets across our value chain, as our greatest environmental footprint comes from outside our direct operations. These goals enable us to engage our suppliers, helping them set their own greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and enable our customers to drive more efficient IT solutions across industries. This year, we reassessed the biggest opportunities we have and identified two new SDGs to prioritize—Gender Equality and Responsible Consumption and Production, helping us grow our business responsibly while addressing gender inequality.

How are you and your team moving from a linear to a circular economy?

Transitioning to the circular economy is undoubtedly vital for businesses, yet not all businesses are doing this successfully. If you’re not fully transforming your company and where your material impact is to a more circular, regenerative model, you’re not transitioning, you’re stalling. At HPE, we recognize that rapid technological innovation can lead to new efficiencies while also leading to the rapid obsolesce of legacy IT hardware and the overconsumption of precious rare Earth metals. 

That’s why we’ve positioned our circular economy efforts around how we can keep Earth metals within the circle, designing for environment and circularity through extended product life, resource efficiencies, material recyclability, and reducing IT consumption overall through IT service offerings. We offer multiple programs across our global markets to encourage participation in the circular economy including asset trade-in, remanufactured and refurbished offerings, and recycling solutions. Over the past year, we took in 4 million units at our Technology Renewal Centers. 89% were returned into the circle and given new life, and the remaining 11% were recycled. We’ve also increased the recyclability of our products, with many of our key product across compute and networking at more than 99% recyclability.

Disclosing ESG risk to investors is a hot topic for 2019 – how are you tackling the increased pressure and workload for you and your team?

I’m fortunate to have a team of driven, passionate employees with diverse skillsets that help us recognize the intersectionality of our climate crisis and how we as a tech company are uniquely positioned to drive positive change in the digital age. One project I’m particularly excited about is helping us anticipate and disclose ESG risks. This past year, we conducted a forward-looking analysis assuming two climate scenarios to better understand the environmental and financial opportunities of enhancing our current climate strategies and how resilient these strategies are over both the short (0-3 years) and long-term (5-15 years). This analysis adopts the recommendations set forth by the G20 Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which links climate-related risks and opportunities with the financial stability of our organization.

Our modeling confirms that the physical risks of climate change present potential negative financial impacts to our company, which are most pronounced in the limited mitigation scenario. However, the 1.5°C scenario revealed that the opportunities from developing technology solutions to facilitate a low-carbon transition will outweigh the risks, reiterating the value of our work. We predict numerous business opportunities for HPE and our customers if we continue to advocate for a low-carbon economy, apply innovative technologies to reduce operational energy use, and create aggressive proof-of-concept solutions that help our customers thrive in a carbon‑constrained market. Read our latest Living Progress Report to see the details of this study.