Everything you need to know about Corporate Digital Responsibility (RNE)
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Digital waste, increase in connected objects, massive collection of personal data, illiteracy; the digital universe has many aspects and challenges whose risks are still too little known to businesses.
Corporate Digital Responsibility, also called RNE, is therefore a major tool to be used in order to understand these problems of today and tomorrow.
The RNE is still little known in France but it was inspired by the Anglo-Saxon concept of Corporate Digital Responsibility. We are trying to reconcile two quite different worlds: The digital and corporate social responsibility (PINK).
But What is Corporate Digital Responsibility exactly? How do you implement it in your company? How does it revolve around CSR? We'll give you some lines of thought to become aware of the impacts of digital technology.
What is Corporate Digital Responsibility (RNE)?
The digital evolves at a high speed. As a result, numerous advantages but also dangers and unintended consequences.
What ethics to adopt facing the processing of personal data? What is The impact of its product over the long term? Is there A digital divide in your business?
These are questions that the RNE will be able to clarify.
Corporate Digital Responsibility is defined as taking into account the impacts of the use of digital technology On:
- The workers
- The economic model
- The environment
According to CSR platform, which submitted its 1st opinion on the matter July 6, 2020, the RNE is “a new and essential deployment of CSR which is based on the same principles of raccountability, ethics and exchanges with stakeholders.”
The objective of Corporate Digital Responsibility is therefore to Guiding businesses in compliance with 4 fundamental digital procedures, namely:
- La creation of new technologies and data collection
- Les decision process
- Les impact analyses
- Les technological improvements
The 3 pillars of RNE
Data management
We may not necessarily realize it, but it exists risks and challenges more or less important when you have private data as a company. In addition to losing the trust of its customers if their data were disclosed unintentionally, a use that is not in accordance with the RGPD may involve heavy sanctions.
This information is necessary when it comes to getting to know your customers better. But you have to be careful with Respecting privacy well of everyone.
The League for Human Rights (LDH) emphasizes that digital advances have numerous advantages such as access to information but they can also become”tools for surveillance and oppression”.
The RNE allows you to ask yourself several questions about the data collected:
- What are data managed, produced and valued?
- What is your legal context facing the exploitation of this data?
It is important to ask yourself these questions in order to be in a process of transparency and trust, both with your employees and your customers.
Issues related to environmental impacts
Digital technology, even if it seems intangible, has very real environmental impacts. The carbon footprint of digital technology is significant, between The resources necessary for manufacturing and its use that emits GHGs (Greenhouse Gases).
According to ADEME, GHGs issued by the digital sector represent between 2% and 4% of all global GHGs. And that number is constantly increasing.
The RNE encourages quantifying its digital impacts by analysing 4 indicators:
- Les GHG emissions
- La water consumption
- La power consumption
- Les abiotic resources
The company has an environmental responsibility on each stage of the value chain, whether The design, The use or The end of life of the product. This analysis makes it possible to see the points to change, to resort to eco-design and to register in a continuous improvement process.
The digital impact is measured on products but also based on:
- Of vendors
- Of subcontractors
- The use made by the end customer ; they must be informed of the environmental impact generated
The RNE, in addition to raising awareness of the digital footprint, calls into question technological uses within the company.
How does your business approach the digital transition and the resulting impacts ? This type of question clearly shows the value of combining RNE and CSR, both from a strategic point of view and for its brand image.
Issues related to social impacts
The last pillar of the RNE is the social impact of digital technology. Is it creating fractures within your company due to exclusion or Ilelectronism ? Public services are a good example of this non-inclusiveness since some people have difficulty accessing them.
According to the Digital Society Mission, 13 million French people were digitally excluded in 2017.
And as we have seen during the various lockdowns, digital technology has radically changed our relationship to work and to the services.
Several issues are linked to this digital transition such as:
- Uberization of certain professions
- The statute platform workers and their precariousness
- The Respect for life of everyone and the “right to disconnect”
- La cybersecurity
Likewise, many Remarks on the racism of algorithms where Artificial Intelligences (AI) have surfaced in recent years.
The responsibility of his company therefore does not only extend to data processing or to its carbon impact. Attention must also be paid to the inclusion of all.
Corporate Digital Responsibility asks several questions that can guide you:
- What is The impact of the digital transition on internal life of your business?
- What is the digital change in The employee-business relationship?
- How do you respond to the digital divide?
The social pillar of digital technology is undoubtedly the most complicated to understand because you have to keep in mind theobjective to be inclusive. For this, it is possible to do trainings within the company, for example.
Digital Responsibility and Corporate Social Responsibility
Digital technology has environmental and social impacts, it goes without saying that we want to reconcile RNE and CSR since the two complement and reinforce each other.
The common challenges of CSR and RNE are:
- Ethical
- Temporal
- Democratic
The idea of both approaches is to be responsible, both environmentally and socially. Whether it is RNE or CSR, we find the same principles of transparency, Of ethics and Exchanges.
What does it mean to be digitally responsible?
After analyzing the 3 pillars of RNE, What do we do to be digitally responsible?
The challenge is to meet objectives in favor of sustainability. So being digitally responsible means having A responsibility :
- Regulatory that is linked to the protection of private data, the GDPR and sectoral regulations
- Ethics Which is related to AI software
- Societal based on data management, data sharing and inclusiveness
- Environmental in relation to the use of data and the consideration of the environmental impacts resulting from company activities
Being digitally responsible is above all about become aware of its digital impacts, of ethics with regard to data and to make every effort for the inclusiveness of all.
The 3 pillars of RNE are therefore divided into 3 axes:
- The respect for the privacy of employees and company commitments
- Deploying AI and automating, not to mention keeping people at the heart of the business
- Digitalization for well-being and inclusion employees.
6 recommendations from the CSR Platform to be digitally responsible
Sobriety
Sobriety is the most effective strategy to reduce digital waste and carbon footprint.
To do this, nothing could be simpler:
- Bet on eco-design
- Pay attention to Lifespan of your products
- Prefer a refurbished IT fleet for your business
- Analyze and quantify your impacts to see what points need to be changed
Thanks to sobriety, technology is at the service of ecological transition.
Governance
The RNE promotes transparency, it is therefore important to implement it. To build committed governance:
- Include metrics to assess your RNE in your extra-financial performance declarations
- Integrate digital into social dialogue
- Write down best practices for using digital technology in Charters
These actions make it possible to create a conscious, ethical and responsible digital governance.
The information
For RNE to be as effective as possible, it is essential to Deploy it largely thanks to training and information. Whether within the company, in VSEs or SMEs, it is necessary to train potential impacts of digital technology with respect to private law, the environment and social issues.
Inclusion
In order for digital technology to be truly inclusive in your business:
- Expand digital equity taking into account the comments and advice of your employees
- Do some short courses to teach them how to use certain tools
- Promote voluntary data sharing.
New forms of work
Current digitalization is setting up new forms of work, it is important to remain open to them while understanding Related problems to the emergence of these new modes of operation.
Awareness is needed in relation to:
- New managerial relationships
- New jobs and their status sometimes precarious
- Working conditions linked to digital professions, directly or indirectly.
As we can see, with the growth of digital technology, it is becoming essential to have impact management, whether environmental or social. Corporate Digital Responsibility is therefore part of this desire. to supervise digital technology, a double-edged tool.
Rzilient, your iT partner, accompanies you towards responsible digital technology, a real CSR challenge, by offering you refurbished iT equipment. We meet your digital needs while promoting the values of collective interest and respect for human rights
