Globe

To expand access to digital technologies, Globe delivers subsidised Wi-Fi access to low-income families through the KonekTayo (Connect Us) programme. The programme has reached more than 45,000 households as of July 2021.

Globe’s Digital Thumbprint Program (DTP) educates Filipino youth on digital citizenship and responsible use of technology. As of 2021, almost two million students have access to this programme. Globe launched DTP based on the experiences of its part-owner Singtel’s Australian subsidiary, which illustrates a good example of learning from the experience of others. Through the Global Filipino Schools (GFS) programme, Globe provides schools with free internet, digital tools and capacity building for teachers to enable them to employ digital tools in their teaching. Moreover, a third-party impact assessment found that participation in the GFS programme increased students’ scores on the national standard test. Globe also supports Virtualahan, a virtual school for persons with disabilities and persons from other vulnerable groups, to provide e-commerce and content marketing training.

Globe follows best practice in monitoring, responding to and reporting on cybersecurity incidents. It also provides clear wording regarding the collection of data and rights of users in its privacy policy. The company demonstrates a high-level commitment to child online safety and has various partnerships with governments and non-governmental organisations to support initiatives in this area. Furthermore, it discloses the mechanisms it has in place to report harm to children online as well as cooperates with international authorities to report harm.

Globe contributes to the tech innovation ecosystem through a venture capital fund and other start-up support. The company also aligns its activities with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and uses them as a framework to measure its own progress in sustainability.

Globe should consider launching a dedicated initiative supporting digital opportunities for women and girls to help reduce the digital gender divide. Furthermore, the company has the opportunity to commit to accessible design principles and show its support for users with disabilities. It can also disclose how the economic value it generates is distributed among its stakeholders.

There is an opportunity for Globe to introduce initiatives for the development of technical digital skills.

Globe can provide a public document that details how cybersecurity is managed within the company.

There is an opportunity for Globe to commit to open innovation standards. It can also show support for sustainability research through collaboration with universities as well as sharing its data sets for research. Globe should disclose how it fosters diversity and ethics in innovation. For instance, it can disclose the number of its women employees working in tech roles and report how it incorporates ethics into its product development. Click here to enter text. It can also better demonstrate how it supports the tech start-up ecosystem by providing the number of women in their technical teams.

Globe has a public policy statement committing to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights. However, the company does not disclose a process to identify, assess and act on the salient human rights risks in its own operations and in its business relationships. It also does not have a process to engage with stakeholders whose human rights could be impacted by its operations. Globe does have a grievance mechanism accessible to both workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints.

The company publicly commits to respecting worker health and safety, and it places health and safety expectations on its business relationships and monitors their performance. The company also discloses the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. However, it does not specify that it does not require workers to work more than regular and overtime hours, and it provides no relevant evidence in relation to paying its workers a living wage. In relation to workforce diversity, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender. However, it does not disclose employee breakdowns against any other indicators of diversity or provide breakdowns for its entire workforce.

Globe does disclose its global tax strategy, which is overseen by an executive or board-level committee. The company has a publicly available statement prohibiting bribery and corruption, along with a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns and complaints. However, there is no publicly disclosed information showing that the company places the same expectation on its business relationships. Globe states that it does not make political contributions. However, the company does not disclose its lobbying expenditures.