Corporate Digital Responsibility
Digital adoption has grown rapidly as a result of the pandemic, along with an increased demand for digital services and contactless payment options. In the wake of heavy investments in technology and the scramble to adapt, many organizations may not have properly assessed the implications and ethical use of emerging technologies.
Strong leadership and awareness about the risks and opportunities of digitization can help businesses remain agile and competitive in the digital environment. Cultivating a brand narrative that is cohesive with responsible digital practices will help provide clarity and positively position your organization as a leader during this period of technological acclimation.
As governments around the globe grapple with insidious issues, such as privacy and equality, a group of international academics, professionals and experts have created a set of universal principles called the Corporate Digital Responsibility Manifesto to help guide the way towards a responsible digital future. Structured around these seven principles, this article will provide guidance for good conduct and make suggestions for how your organization can assess and respond to issues related to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). By considering the impact of technology use, demonstrating good judgment and engaging in digital communications with purpose, your organization will be prepared to build meaningful connections with digital communities.
What is Corporate Digital Responsibility?
There is a revolving door of communications platforms available for businesses to connect with their stakeholders. With such a fast pace of change, it can be difficult to keep up with what you should and shouldn’t be doing online. Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) can be seen as an extension of your existing CSR or ESG brand narrative, which are organizational initiatives intended to nurture relationships with stakeholders by integrating social and environmental concerns into a thoughtful and holistic management strategy.
Corporate Digital Responsibility is focused on taking accountability for engaging in responsible digital transformations that promote trust, transparency and sustainability. Organizations that take accountability for their digital impact are seen as socially and ecologically responsible, resulting in increased trust from stakeholder groups. This trust translates into customer loyalty, favorable brand reputation, elevated employee engagement, better access to capital and improved bottom-line performance.
If you’ve ever questioned your organization’s use of ICT such as communications platforms, websites, social media, databases, intranets, apps or email, the principles that follow are a guide to progress. They will allow you to conduct an audit of ICT use and identify opportunities to demonstrate integrity and build trust with stakeholders by developing a brand narrative around CDR efforts.
The 7 Principles of CDR
Purpose and Trust
Fair and Equitable Access for All
Promote Societal Wellbeing
Consider Economic and Societal Impact
Accelerate Progress with the Impact Economy
Create a Sustainable Planet to Live
Reduce Tech Impact on Climate and the Environment
1. Purpose and Trust
Communicating with stakeholders about CDR initiatives can help build an understanding of the importance and relevance of digital responsibility. For example, empowering people with information by sharing data insights and allowing users to make corrections, or opt out of data collection wherever it is not required. Providing options demonstrates a commitment to transparency and nurtures trust in the user experience.
2. Fair and Equitable Access for All
Technology shouldn't prevent anyone from interacting with your business. Accessibility online may include writing alt text for images and videos, ensuring captions are accurate, being mindful of emoji use and prioritizing inclusivity. While automation can save time and money, providing an option to connect with another human adds immense value when technology is not accessible or when it is not a good fit to solve a problem.
3. Promote Societal Wellbeing
Technology can improve human life in an infinite number of ways, but as we know from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it can also be harmful to society when used to profile and manipulate individuals based on their personal information. Create emotional safety by using platforms to promote justice, equity and inclusion while actively evaluating the potential for emerging technologies to perpetuate bias or discrimination.
4. Consider Economic and Societal Impact
Automation can help expedite work processes and make our lives easier – but it can also have serious repercussions on the relationships you’ve spent years building. Despite becoming increasingly skilled at simulating conversation and comprehension, artificial intelligence merely reproduces information from a dataset and can not replace human ingenuity, contextual understanding and professional judgment. Responsible automation requires us to consider the impact of automation on existing relationships and retrain employees to drive the machines, ensuring responsible oversight.
5. Accelerate Progress with Impact Economy
Help contribute to the demand for ecologically and societally better products and services across the supply chain. For example, tech companies are increasingly committing to using data centres powered by renewable energy which has started a conversation about the invisible energy use behind our everyday communications. By connecting your brand story to CDR and talking about the impact, you are helping to make the unseen seen. The more educated and engaged consumers become about CDR, the higher demand will be for industry alignment.
6. Create a Sustainable Planet to Live
Given the fast pace of development leading to rapid obsolescence, assessing the lifecycle of technology can be a tedious task. Both non-renewable elements and potentially harmful compounds like gold and lead are commonly used in hardware, so planning to safely dispose of equipment or adhering to a circular economy model is a great way to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability.
7. Reduce Tech Impact on Climate and the Environment
ICT use has been estimated to be responsible for between 2 and 4 per cent of global CO² emissions – about double that of the global aviation industry. These numbers are difficult to quantify and likely prone to increase along with the use of emerging technologies like cloud computing, machine learning, generative AI and the Internet of Things (IoT), where energy consumption is often nebulous to the end user. Finding opportunities to reduce these environmental impacts and reporting on these efforts is key to increasing stakeholder trust in environmental stewardship.
Overall, the purpose of CDR is to increase transparency further than legally required to ensure technology is being used responsibly, which helps increase trust and prevent regulation that could impede innovation.
Taking action is the strongest form of communication and will reflect genuine purpose in your CDR efforts. Using technology with purpose demonstrates that you care about your communities, which is key to creating a cohesive and persuasive CDR narrative for your brand.