ASF Leadership for change

Report from  meeting Sep 3, 2024

During the Forum meeting in September, Matthias Thorns, Global Labor Relations and Human Rights Director and Monique Gerson, Global Human Rights Senior Director at Samsung informed and discussed with members about their work with Human Rights due diligence, including risk assessments and mitigation plans.

The project manager reported on status for the Gameplan 2030 project (more info soon to be published) where participants are accelerating the transition to a circular and net-zero IT sector by implementing five sustainable IT actions.

Moreover, members brainstormed topics for the upcoming Learning Academy, a full-day meeting devoted to peer-to-peer learning taking place in October.

There is an upcoming article featuring three members: Adda, Electrolux and StormGeo.

We also had the pleasure of welcoming a new member – Skövde municipality!

Next meeting: October 24.

Report from  meeting June 11, 2024

During the Forum meeting in September, Matthias Thorns, Global Labor Relations and Human Rights Director and Monique Gerson, Global Human Rights Senior Director at Samsung informed and discussed with members about their work with Human Rights due diligence, including risk assessments and mitigation plans.
The project manager reported on status for the Gameplan 2030 project (more info soon to be published) where participants are accelerating the transition to a circular and net-zero IT sector by implementing five sustainable IT actions.
Moreover, members brainstormed topics for the upcoming Learning Academy, a full-day meeting devoted to peer-to-peer learning taking place in October.
There is an upcoming article featuring three members: Adda, Electrolux and StormGeo.
We also had the pleasure of welcoming a new member – Skövde municipality!
Next meeting: October 24.

Report from April 24, 2024

During the April Forum meeting Christian Tangene from DFØ (the Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management) presented the updated §7-9 procurement directive stating that climate and environmental considerations should be weighted with a minimum of 30 percent in public procurement. Since weighting of sustainability is at the core of the Leadership for Change commitment, members were interested in knowing what effect the rule has had so far and to learn more about potential challenges. The main message was that the rule certainly has increased focus on climate and environmental aspects, but successful application of the rule requires time and resources.

The result of the annual review where members assess how well their organizations adhere to the principles of the Statement of Commitment was presented. It was very gratifying to see that progress has been made in all areas assessed. 63 percent of the members weigh sustainability in the IT procurements and the share of members who do it for all procurement categories have increased. The average weighting is 23 percent, a slight decline from 2023 which can be related to this fact. Weighting in some categories can be more challenging.

The most progress was made within prolonging the lifespan of IT products, for example in educating employees, extending contract length and minimizing the amount of products and peripherals. This is potentially a result of the best practices in this category that was published in 2023.

The next set of best practices (Creating and implementing a strategy for sustainable IT) was approved and will be published shortly.

We also had the pleasure of welcoming a new member: Handelsbanken.

Report from Feb 1, 2024

The first Forum meeting of 2024 focused on developing a plan for the coming year and identifying topics the members want to increase their knowledge of as well as impact. The plan also states an ambition to increase the dialogue with the industry and continue to develop peer exchange.

Axess Group presented how they have been able to reduce carbon emissions from IT, and Svenska Kyrkan provided insights to succeed with sustainable procurement in an organization with 600 independent legal entities.

The next meeting will be held in April.

ASF Leadership for Change was launched by a group of engaged IT buyers who are also part of the Atea Sustainability Advisory Board (see below). Through our engagement in the Board, we have been developing recommendations to the global IT industry on how to address certain sustainability aspects defined as important by the Nordic IT buyers. To accelerate the sustainable development of the IT industry, we realized that we have to create a market for sustainable actions and decided to do so by transforming our recommendations into concrete procurement criteria, and by putting a greater weight on sustainability performance in decision making.

We understood that in order to succeed we need to share best practices and learn from each other. Therefore a learning academy is at the center of the initiative. We will also have annual dialogues with the global IT industry to communicate our goals, discuss how we best can create impact and to continuously raise our ambitions.

We invite other organizations to join this initiative in order to become a powerful force of change and to raise the overall effectiveness of sustainability criteria.

You commit to start implementing the principles outlined in the Statement of Commitment and to be public about your membership. You also commit to share your procurement practices regarding sustainability with other members, and to participate network activities (see below). Read more here.

Compliance is monitored through self assessment which is carried out annually. The purpose of the self assessment is to help members in their journey towards implementing the principles in the Statement of Commitment. The content of the self assessment is not shared with anyone outside the individual member organization and respondents can be anonymous. We trust that your commitment to advancing sustainability in the IT industry is real and that members will do their best to implement principles. 

It is how you act when procuring IT that will make the difference, not your logo on this web site.

No, nothing more than your engagement.

ASF Leadership for Change was initiated by members of the ASF Advisory Board, consisting of large IT buyers from both public and private sector. A complete list of the founding organizations and signatories can be found here.

Atea founded Atea Sustainability Focus which is the underlying initiative that brought together the buyers who now have formed the ASF Leadership for Change. Atea’s role is to coordinate and facilitate member activities. Atea has no influence over the content, and the principles in the Statement of Commitment are aimed at the global manufacturing IT industry.

An integral part of the ASF Leadership for Change is the sharing of procurement practices in order to inspire other buyers and to identify best practices. The main activity is therefore a full day called the Learning Academy. Apart from that there are three to four shorter Forum meetings where the agenda is largely set by the members. The network also produces best practices in different areas based on what the members are doing in that area. Read more about the activities here. 

Atea Sustainability Focus brings together Nordic IT buyers, so that we can use our combined voice to increase the focus on sustainability in the global IT industry’s supply chain. The initiative is centered around a survey where buyers communicate the progression they want to see from the industry. Their preferences, along with recommendations to the industry on how to address them are turned into a report that is handed over to the industry’s most influential body on sustainability, the Responsible Business Alliance. The recommendations are developed by an Advisory Board made up of engaged IT buyers, the same group that now has initiated the ASF Leadership for Change.

Read more about Atea Sustainability Focus here.