ASF Leadership for change

Report from meeting Dec 11, 2024

The last meeting of 2024 focused primarily on industry dialogue around circularity. One of the core objectives for this year was to increase exchange with brand owners around material topics, and this session concluded a long series of such dialogues.

Anne-Marie Jensen, Nordic Sustainability Impact Lead at HP and Hans Häggblom, Business Transformation Lead at Apple, joined the session to inform the group about their respective actions and plans for making IT more circular. There was also a discussion around what IT-buying organizations could do to aid the transformation. Among other things, Anne-Marie and Hans recommended extending the lifespan of devices through upgrades and refurbishment, and to challenge suppliers in tender requests.

A challenge that was identified during the meeting is that there is no third-party verification of the amount of recycled content in products.

As a follow-up of the presentation from DFØ around the Norwegian 30 % rule in September, Saeed Behdad from Sykehuspartner shared with the group how they have worked to implement the rule of giving environmental criteria at least a 30 percent weight in procurements. Actions include developing a requirement bank and updating the “needs assessment form” so that exceptions from the rule need to be motivated already in the pre-purchase phase.  

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.