Ericsson

Ericsson supports digital inclusivity for women and girls through a dedicated STEM centre in collaboration with the Northeast Texas Council and Girl Scouts of the USA. The centre has developed into a 92-acre living laboratory that provides opportunities for girl scouts to learn robotics and coding, among other skills. Around 86% of the participants report being more interested in STEM fields as a result of the programme.

Ericsson demonstrates leading practice through its participation in initiatives that contribute to the development of basic, intermediate and advanced technical skills, as well as improved school connectivity. The company’s flagship programme Connect to Learn has been increasing access to technology-related education opportunities for vulnerable users since 2007 and has reached over 200,000 students located across 25 countries to date. Its Digital Lab initiative teaches students in India, Italy, South Africa and Sweden skills such as programming, game development, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. Further, Ericsson has partnered with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on the Giga initiative to map school connectivity across the world with the aim of connecting every school to the internet by 2030.

Ericsson fulfils good practice for cybersecurity with high-level oversight, a security incident response team, publicly available information security certification and detailed security incident reporting. Additionally, Ericsson considers information security and data protection, as well as digital inclusion, key material topics.

The company demonstrates a commitment to open source projects and standards and is a founding member of the Linux Foundation Networking Fund, which drives open source networking projects. It supports the tech start-up ecosystem through venture capital investments and the Ericsson Innovation Awards. It also supports non-profits and universities on sustainability-related research. Additionally, the company has adopted the European Commission’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence.

Ericsson has an opportunity to report on the number of its employees with disabilities and outline its action plan to create an accessible workplace. The company can also enhance transparency by disclosing disaggregated data on the income taxes it pays and employment in its countries of operations.

While the company’s programmes in skills development are broad, both in scope and international reach, metrics relating to the initiatives are limited. In addition, the company has not carried out a third-party assessment of its Connect to Learn programme. More detailed reporting and assessment of its programmes can help Ericsson better understand and communicate its impact, as well as identify areas of strengths and improvements.

Ericsson can consider making high-level public commitments to cybersecurity and child online safety.

The company has an opportunity to report on its R&D locations.

Ericsson commits to respecting human rights as well as the ILO core labour rights. The company identifies, assesses and takes action to address salient human rights issues in its own operations and in its business relationships. Furthermore, the company provides grievance mechanisms accessible to both workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints. The company also identifies and engages with the stakeholders whose human rights are or may be impacted by its operations. However, it can improve transparency by disclosing specific examples of how it has engaged with these stakeholders in the last two years.

Ericsson publicly commits to respecting worker health and safety, but it does not disclose quantitative health and safety information, such as the rate of high-consequence work-related injuries. The company discloses what proportion of its workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements. However, it does not disclose a commitment towards paying its workers a living wage. The company has publicly committed to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment and has more than 30% women on its board. It also discloses a breakdown of employees by gender and age in various employee categories.

Ericsson has policies prohibiting bribery and corruption; however, it does not describe the steps and processes it takes to identify and address bribery and corruption risks and impact. The company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns on the topic, and it also includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts. The company does not disclose a global tax strategy; Ericsson’s tax strategy only covers its UK business operations. Furthermore, the company does not disclose its income tax payments in individual tax jurisdictions. It also does not demonstrate a sufficient commitment to responsible lobbying and political engagement and does not report on key metrics under this topic.