"Businesses can make a difference"
How did you get interested in sustainability?
- I have been working on sustainability for about 15 years. I'm a trained journalist and have always wanted to do my bit. Through a banana peel, life took me to the IT industry and HP and it was very exciting. Then I ended up at Clas Ohlson as a product manager and there I found CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and started focusing on sustainable supply chains. I looked for products all over the world and spent a lot of time in Chinese factories, and that's when the penny dropped. I started to understand how I wanted to use my experiences from living and traveling around the world, interest in languages and different cultures and the challenges of the world.
- I started training in sustainability while working and became a sustainability expert in my position at Clas Ohlson. Then I took a leave of absence, to study further in Canada and get more experience with NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization) and the whole important sphere. I lived first in Canada and then in Bolivia and worked there for a Canadian NGO, I simply went "all in" to work with sustainability. When I came back to Sweden, Electrolux gave me the opportunity to run their Responsible Sourcing Program in EMEA and I moved to Italy to do it for five years. Since then I have been Head of Sustainability for Elekta, CEO of UN Global Compact Network Sweden and am now back at HP. We need civil society and governments to work, but we also need corporate muscle behind sustainability and I thrive in the private sector to drive change.
What is the big sustainability challenge for the tech industry?
- There are several, but one is the transition to circularity, which applies to everyone who produces hardware. It's not just about the product itself and the materials that are reused, but also about changing an entire company. Companies need to change production processes, supplier partnerships and the services offered, among other things. The whole 'business' is changing and this is a challenge for everyone, no matter where you are in the chain. Another challenge that we don't talk much about is the climate impact of data use itself. According to figures I have received, it accounts for about nine percent and aviation for around twelve percent of climate emissions. But most people talk about the latter. The climate impact of data use is a challenge for everyone, whether hardware or software is your main business.