Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility

We apply our competence, solutions and innovation to global challenges in order to empower people, business and society to help shape a more sustainable world. In the Networked Society, Ericsson is the leading advocate of Technology for Good. By using broadband, cloud and mobility to address climate change, poverty, education, health, human rights, and humanitarian issues such as refugees, peace and disaster response, we work to ensure that our technology is a force for good and lasting change.

Our Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility strategy

Anchored in our strategy, sustainability and corporate responsibility (CR) are central to Ericsson’s core business. For us, sustainability is about the “triple bottom line”—long-term social equity, economic prosperity, and environmental performance. Corporate responsibility is about maintaining the necessary controls to minimize risks, while creating positive impacts for our stakeholders and our brand. A sustainable and responsible approach results in value creation for the company, our employees, our customers, our shareholders and society as a whole.

Managing our key issues

We prioritize sustainability and corporate responsibility issues in terms of their importance to our business, our stakeholders, society and the environment. Through our strategy work we have determined our key material issues are: Accessibility and affordability of mobile communication; the energy and materials performance of our products and solutions and our own activities; climate change and urbanization, business ethics, and employee engagement.

Our value chain

Sustainability and CR issues are addressed throughout our business operations, and within our sphere of influence, we consider both direct and indirect impacts. We map the key focus areas in each phase of the value chain and identify how stakeholder engagement enhances value creation.

Materiality process

Ericsson uses a materiality process to rank the sustainability and CR issues most relevant to our business. We rank an issue based on its interest to stakeholders and impact to Ericsson’s business to see where these two aspects meet. This allows us to identify priorities, and align our strategy and reporting with emerging stakeholder expectations.

Stakeholder Engagement

Engaging with a wide range of stakeholders informs our strategy and actions and presents opportunities to partner on innovative approaches and solutions to pressing global challenges. Forums such as the Social Good Summit and Rio+Social are examples of how we use social media to spark conversation and spur action around Technology for Good with a global audience.

Our Focus Areas