Johanna Giorgi new chair of the Sustainability Council

Sustainability
After three years, TechSverige's Sustainability Council has a new chair. Magdalena Aspengren hands over the gavel to Johanna Giorgi, Head of Sustainability at AddSecure.

- I have a background at the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and before that I worked a lot in the IT industry, always with issues related to public and private collaboration and community development, says Johanna Giorgi.

 How did you become interested in sustainability issues?

- It really comes from being a political scientist from the beginning and having an interest in influencing social development somewhere. At the end of my studies, I realized that the public path might not be the right way to go. Then I got into the public/private sector and right at that time there was talk of CSR as a concept, i.e. the responsibility of companies to contribute to positive social development, and that issue has since only grown in complexity, what it means and means from some kind of goodwill efforts to actually becoming more business-critical. Dhis is an interesting development that I think is going in the right direction, and it's accelerating even more now, including in the area of legislation.

 How did you get involved in the Sustainability Council?

- About three years ago, I joined AddSecure, an IoT company with operations in 15 countries. I felt that I needed an organization where I could get help with business intelligence and to follow the issues that were relevant to AddSecure. It was also to get some kind of exchange with organizations that wrestle with the same issues in slightly different ways, but within the lowest common denominator, which is still that we are all companies in the IT field.

What do you hope to achieve in the future with the work of the Sustainability Council?

- As I see it, the Sustainability Council has two main tasks. On the one hand, to monitor issues that are important to the members, but also to highlight the opportunities of digitization, i.e. show what we can achieve with the help of digital solutions and how we can contribute to better social development. At the same time, we must be brave and highlight what is problematic for the industry, because there are challenges.

Frida Faxborn, Business Policy Expert and Head of the Sustainability Council at TechSverige, is looking forward to working closely with Johanna Giorgi as Chair:

- She has a broad background and expertise and a great ability to see the big picture. Given the breadth and horizontal nature of sustainability issues, this is of utmost importance. Her commitment to sustainable development will benefit the entire Council's activities.

Is it good or bad news that you earn more than me?

The proportion of women on the boards of listed companies is now at a record 30.7%, according to the Second AP Fund's annual women's index presented last week. The year before, the figure was 27.9 percent. This is good news and shows "a boost in development", said Eva Halvarsson, CEO of the Second AP Fund. "Bad news," said Annika Elias, chair of Ledarna , who sees no reason to have the patience to "wait 37 years" for Sweden to achieve gender equality.

At the same time, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise presented its report "Women in work and management in business", which they say shows that "the winds of change are blowing" based on the fact that the proportion of women in management is steadily increasing in the business world; now the proportion of women in management positions is almost as high (37%) as the proportion of women in the business world overall (39%). What the report also shows is that the share of women in CEO positions is just above 10% and has been so, with minor variations, since 1998. "No great force in the pace of change", could thus also be a true message. Today, the National Mediation Office presented the report "The gender pay gap 2015 - what do the official pay statistics say?". The headline and main message was that "The gender pay gap continues to narrow". Very true indeed. On the other hand, the fact that the decrease was 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous year, that the total gender pay gap across the economy was 12.5%, the unexplained gender pay gap was 4.6%, and that male graduates are paid more than female graduates in a third of the higher education institutions surveyed, means that the headline "Gender pay gap persists" would be at least as accurate. So what are we really saying? And what are we saying by how we say it? Does it matter? I'm pretty sure it does. For example, it is often said that the difference between a glass being half empty or half full is a matter of attitude. That may be so. But there is no way that someone's attitude determines whether the glass will ever be full, or even remain half full. Looking at things positively sounds good in principle, but does it encourage improvement? Does it make anyone actually do what is required - that is, refill that glass? Or, if you like, the right people to actively do what it takes to make us that equal country that harnesses - and fairly rewards - the skills of its entire population? I'm not so sure about that.  

Minus

"Gender equality is not an HR issue", said CGI's Head of Sweden Pär Fors wisely during the seminar organized by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in connection with the release of the above-mentioned report. However, and unfortunately, apparently a women's issue, judging by the fact that the audience consisted of about 95% women.

More

157 out of 3721 events during this year's Almedalen Week are in some way about gender equality - including this one: Womentor's seminar "A gender equal IT and telecom industry - vision or reality?" and of course the 5050 Club's mingle.

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