Microsoft and the Sustainable Development Goals

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1 Microsoft Corporation Tel One Microsoft Way Fax Redmond, WA Microsoft and the Sustainable Development Goals September 2015 Microsoft s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more aligns strongly to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs, set to be adopted by the United Nations later this month, will succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000, and establish an agenda for global efforts on sustainable development through The SDGs will guide and strengthen government, corporate, and civil society interaction and collaborations for years to come. At Microsoft, the SDGs are a helpful framework to align our business strategies and practices supporting global social and economic priorities. The SDGs cover a broad array of socio-economic and environmental development topics that relate to Microsoft s business and operations. We believe Microsoft can make significant contributions to the SDGs across six key areas: 1. Our People 2. Our Products 3. Our Operations 4. Our Partners 5. Our Communities 6. Governance Summary Microsoft is contributing to each of the SDGs in many ways and we have more opportunities to do so. However, there are two SDGs where we believe Microsoft s role will be especially important: SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Technology can play a key role in transforming education and promoting lifelong learning, such as through innovative teaching methods, adaptive curriculum and interactive learning experiences. Moreover, increasing access and standardizing computer science education for all youth will spur innovation in emerging and developed markets across the globe. SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Productivity services, mobile technology and cloud services can expand economic opportunity, create jobs, and support business growth. 1. Our People One of our most important contributions to sustainable development is our role as an employer and provider of more than 115,000 jobs globally. Microsoft s approach to offering quality employment through our employment policies, benefits, and workforce development opportunities supports several of the SDGs. Microsoft Corporation is an equal opportunity employer. 1

2 For example, SDG 3 (healthy lives and well-being) stresses the importance of universal access to health services. The health and wellness benefits we offer our employees are an important contributor to the access and affordability of healthcare, and we continue to make investments in the well-being of our employees to ensure their physical, financial, and social wellness. With nearly 50 percent of our employees outside of the United States, we address the various health needs of our global workforce by region and by job profile, particularly with the addition of hardware manufacturing sites. Our investments in employee training and development programs where employees spend an average of 30 hours each in formal training programs per year represent a significant contribution towards SDG 4 (quality education and lifelong learning). Specifically, we contribute to the technical capacity building emphasized as part of SDG 4, an important skills requirement of global high quality jobs. SDG 5 (gender equality and empowering all women and girls) addresses an area of increased attention and interest at Microsoft and the broader IT industry. We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion and understand that employing a diverse workforce is not only a key priority of the SDGs, but also one of the most important things we can do to ensure the continued long-term growth and success of Microsoft. We are also addressing the broader challenges faced by our sector by investing in pipeline programs to increase the representation of women in the science and technology field. 2. Our Products Microsoft s products and services enable people around the world to achieve more and extend our impact on SDGs to people in almost every region. These technologies represent our largest opportunity to contribute to global sustainable development. Our products and services contribute to the development and upkeep of the critical data infrastructure storage, collection, analysis, and transparency that will be required to track progress against all the SDGs, both at a country and a global level. It has been noted that the paucity of data systems (so called data deprivation 1 ), especially in developing countries, has been a significant hindrance to achieving the MDGs, and should be addressed urgently with the SDGs. Investment in data, monitoring and accountability, and enhancing the capacity of developing countries to undertake statistical analysis and develop measurements of progress on sustainable development, is a core feature of SDG 17 (global partnerships for sustainable development). We welcome the opportunity to participate in the partnerships necessary to address these data challenges and create appropriate solutions, consistent with the Microsoft strategy of building best-in-class platforms and productivity services for a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Our products expand access to new sources of information and communications capabilities, particularly for communities where current access to such information and networks is limited. These developments can advance nearly all of the SDGs. Microsoft Research s Technology for Emerging Markets team (TEM) is already pursuing many sustainable development priorities, and TEM s insights can contribute to policy discussions that are 1 2

3 already underway. TEM s focus on researching the needs and aspirations of people in the world s developing communities is in direct alignment with the SDGs, and the team s focus on healthcare and education will be especially helpful to SDG 3 (healthy lives and well-being) and SDG 4 (quality education and lifelong learning). We have the opportunity to expand our research agenda to other key issues raised by the SDGs, including gender equality, the environment, and infrastructure. Our tools and solutions can advance several of the environment-related SDGs, including SDG 13 (climate change), SDG 14 (oceans), and SDG 15 (ecosystems), which are in need of readily available data and analysis to inform decisions and subsequent investments in mitigation or adaptation strategies. For example, we are partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to encourage the development of software applications to help farmers, agriculture businesses, and consumers explore how climate change will affect their food systems. Our CityNext platform is designed to empower government, business and citizens to shape the future of their regions, cities, and municipalities, including themes such as Safer Cities, Healthier Cities, Educated Cities, and Sustainable Cities. CityNext demonstrates opportunities to advance several of the SDGs, including SDG 3 (healthy lives and well-being), SDG 4 (quality education and lifelong learning), SDG 9 (resilient infrastructure and sustainable industrialization), SDG 11 (safe, resilient and sustainable cities), and SDG 13 (climate change). CityNext also enables accountable and transparent institutions, and inclusive participatory and representative decision making, important elements of SDG 16 (peaceful and sustainable societies). For example, working with Microsoft and its partners, the city of Buenos Aires has explored ways that technology can streamline local government, improve information access and citizen-centric services, and empower the city s youth to build a better future. In Vietnam, the City of Da Nang has integrated the services of more than 20 government agencies under one IT umbrella to increase public service efficiency and accessibility. Microsoft is committed to increasing computing power per unit of energy consumed across the services and devices that we offer in the marketplace. These efforts help to address SDGs 7, 12, 13, and 15. Each new version of Windows offers enhancements to energy efficiency and power management tools, including a new Energy Saver Mode added to Windows 10. Third-party applications also have an important role to play, and we provide energy-smart development guidance and tools for developers and IT professionals developing for the Windows platform. For our hardware products, we are seeking environmental certifications such as ENERGY STAR, EPEAT, and ULE 110. Microsoft s cloud and Azure services offer another example of how we work to further environmental SDGs. As a carbon neutral cloud services provider, Microsoft offers organizations a carbon-efficient and carbon neutral alternative to running their own private datacenters. Moving to Microsoft cloud services for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM capabilities can help businesses reduce energy use and carbon emissions by 30 to 90 percent per user versus running on premises. 3

4 While Microsoft has been working in education for more than 20 years, under Satya Nadella s leadership Microsoft is making an unprecedented commitment to improving education systems around the world. Microsoft has made Office 365 free for every student worldwide, an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. Many governments are working to determine how to integrate technology into their formal education systems, both for primary/secondary and higher education students. Microsoft works to ensure that technology is well integrated into curriculum and pedagogy and that teachers and faculty have access to professional development to integrate technology into their teaching practices. Microsoft currently trains more than one million faculty and students each year in more than 130 countries. Skype in the Classroom provides another example of a Microsoft offering that furthers the SDGs. Skype in the Classroom creates a free, global community for teachers to connect their students with other students and guest speakers from around the world, thereby advancing SDGs 4 and 16. As part of Microsoft s cloud-first, mobile-first strategy, we re seeing the increased use of cloud services like Microsoft Azure to help government leaders make data-driven decisions on a range of issues including education including how to use predictive analytics to drive individualized learning. For example, when learning management systems can aggregate student data, individualized content and assessments can be delivered to students who learn at different rates and in different ways. Research has shown that individualized learning is a key attribute to building student success. 3. Our Operations Microsoft believes that information technology has tremendous potential to help solve pressing global sustainable development challenges. At the same time, we are pioneering new ways to make our own operations more sustainable. We recognize the need to address our own environmental footprint as both our data center operations and hardware offerings grow. These are also important factors our ability to advance the environmental SDGs including SDG 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 15. Since 2013, we ve achieved 100% carbon neutrality for our global operations, which includes our datacenters, labs, offices, manufacturing facilities, and business air travel. This commitment was achieved by boosting efficiency, purchasing renewable energy in the markets of our operations equal to 100% of our energy consumption where available, and conducting a voluntary successful carbon offset program. Our carbon neutral strategy hinges on company-wide accountability, achieved through an internal carbon fee cascaded globally to our business groups. This industry leading chargeback model puts a price on carbon and makes the company s business divisions responsible for the cost of reducing and compensating for the carbon emissions associated with their electricity use and air travel. 4. Our Partners Suppliers, vendors, and other external partners afford Microsoft opportunities to advance the SDGs through relationships which extend our impact far beyond our direct business operations. Microsoft s approach to employee policies and management can be extended to these business relationships in support of the SDGs. For example, our policy of requiring vendors with more than 50 workers to offer paid leave to employees on Microsoft detail is a model of how we use our influence 4

5 with business partners to promote policies in alignment with the SDGs such as SDG 8 (good jobs and economic growth). In collaboration with others, we work to promote best practices in Impact Sourcing with suppliers that proactively seek to provide work and training opportunities to high potential but disadvantaged individuals. Several of our suppliers have embraced this concept and partnered with us in a multistakeholder group to develop Impact Sourcing success metrics, and also helped developed business cases on Impact Sourcing. In addition, our suppliers have committed to create over 5,000 Impact Employment jobs. Last fiscal year, Microsoft supported Impact Sourcing projects in the United States, Kenya, Uganda, and India for services such as facilities management, and we are working to extend this approach with more suppliers. In developing economies, investing in our local business partners can be an especially important tool in promoting economic growth, innovation and productivity referenced in SDG 8 (good jobs and economic growth), while addressing the underlying social, economic, and political inclusion issues referenced in SDG 12 (sustainable consumption and production). Microsoft also has an opportunity to influence SDG 5 (gender equality and empowering all women and girls), SDG 10 (inequality within and among countries) and SDG 13 (climate change) by choosing to procure from SMEs and large corporations that provide good jobs, promote women, combat climate change, or otherwise contribute to the SDGs. External partnerships with non-governmental organizations, industry groups, and multi-stakeholder initiatives can help Microsoft amplify its voice, integrate stakeholder insights, and enhance the impact of our activities. We are actively engaged in matters that can help advance individual SDGs through various multi-stakeholder efforts, and building these coalitions aligns with SDG 17 (global partnerships for sustainable development). Microsoft actively participates in the World Economic Forum, Family Online Safety Institute, Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, and the Global Network Initiative, among others indeed, we were a founding member of the latter two initiatives. In 2013, Microsoft established its Cybercrime Center, which combats online crimes, including those associated with malware, botnets, intellectual property theft and technology-facilitated child exploitation. The Cybercrime Center brings together third-party partners, allowing cybersecurity experts from around the world to work in the facility with Microsoft s experts for an indefinite period of time. The dedicated space enriches partnerships across industry, academia, law enforcement and customers critical partners in the fight against cybercrime. The Cybercrime center houses our PhotoDNA technology, which combats human trafficking. These anti-cybercrime and anti-trafficking efforts contribute to SDG 16 (peaceful and inclusive societies). In the area of education, Microsoft has been working for the last four years with the British Council on the Badiliko program to build digital hubs across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing students and teachers both training and digital access. To date, Badiliko has built nearly 100 digital hubs providing nearly 600,000 students first-time digital access. Through this program, we have developed a series of policy workshops ensuring that government stakeholders are part of the process that has now 5

6 been implemented in all six countries plus another 14 countries around the world. By working in partnership across stakeholder groups, together we can solve some of the most intractable challenges facing education systems today. As we approach the launch of the SDGs Microsoft is committed to working with governments to ensure they have the right tools and resources to unlock their data and to be able to visualize that data to determine trends and gaps and ultimately be able to realize opportunity for economic growth and stability. We were honored to be the only technology partner involved in the UN s Data Revolution for Sustainable Development project by contributing to the groups work in defining the core areas around data innovation and visualization. Microsoft will continue to review opportunities to form or join collaborative efforts on additional areas raised by the SDGs. 5. Our Communities Microsoft is committed to empowering communities around the planet where our employees, partners, and customers live and work. In order to realize our mission and vision, communities must have the economic and technical capacity to grow with our solutions. With more than $1 billion in corporate giving in FY2015 and significant employee giving and volunteerism programs, Microsoft provides philanthropic contributions and support for issues addressed by many of the SDGs. Our Disaster Response Program is designed to assist communities and emergency responders reeling from unforeseen and potentially catastrophic events. Such efforts advance SDG 11 (safe, resilient and sustainable cities), SDG 1 (ending poverty), SDG 2 (ending hunger), and SDG 13 (climate change), which all emphasize the importance of resiliency in the face of disasters. Additionally, our Technology for Good program, including nonprofit technology donations and capacity building, can play an important role in promoting the ability of grassroots and civil society organizations to advance the SDGs. SDG 17 (global partnerships for sustainable development) emphasizes the particular importance of technology and capacity building for developing countries to advance global development. Microsoft s 4Afrika initiative is a regional example of our focus on increasing access to technology, a key pillar of SDG 9 (resilient infrastructure and sustainable industrialization). This initiative seeks to empower every African to use technology to accelerate growth for the region by providing the necessary skills, access, and innovation. Microsoft YouthSpark works to leverage the power of technology to connect youth around the world with education, employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities. In developing Microsoft YouthSpark, we went beyond addressing the digital divide to take a more holistic approach to address the opportunity divide the gap between those who have the skills, access, and opportunities to be successful and those who do not. YouthSpark s many related initiatives have created more than 300 million opportunities since 2012, directly addressing SDG 4 (quality education and lifelong learning), SDG 5 (gender equality and empowering all women and girls), SDG 8 (good jobs and economic growth), and 6

7 SDG 10 (inequality within and among countries). Of special significance in these examples is the use of technology to enable women s empowerment, promote job skills, and address youth unemployment. Earlier this month, our CEO Satya Nadella announced a new commitment of $70 million in community investments over the next three years to increase access to computer science education for all youth. Technology can help solve the world s greatest challenges, but only if we tap into the creativity and imagination of as much of the global population as possible, said Nadella. We can t leave anyone out. We must cultivate and develop technology talent from across the spectrum of diverse youth populations, in the U.S, and around the world, in order to spark new innovations across all industries and society. Over the next three years, Microsoft will deliver on this commitment through cash grants and nonprofit partnerships as well as unique program and content offerings to increase access to computer science and computational thinking for diverse populations of youth. One of the flagship programs is Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS), which pairs tech professionals from across the industry with classroom educators to team-teach computer science in U.S. high schools. TEALS aims to grow five-fold in the next three years, with the goal of working with 2,000 tech industry volunteers to reach 30,000 students in nearly 700 schools across 33 states. 6. Governance Microsoft s unwavering commitment to strong corporate governance and the ethical and transparent operations of our business are crucial to our ability to serve as a global voice for sustainable development. Our strong corporate governance and business ethics help address the call in SDG 16 (peaceful and inclusive societies) to reduce corruption and bribery and build accountable and transparent institutions. Our standards of business conduct and anti-corruption policies, and required trainings for employees as well as suppliers, address our own impacts and seek to raise global business standards through the power of example. Our sustainability reporting and ongoing commitment to enhanced transparency on important issues such as global human rights, employee diversity, and carbon footprint are important to SDG 12 (sustainable consumption and production) which calls on companies to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle as a means to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns. Finally, Microsoft s public policy agenda highlights three critical areas accelerating economic growth, addressing societal challenges, and working responsibly in the information economy in which governments can shape their policies to spur economic growth, advance national priorities, and use the enormous potential of IT to achieve their goals. As well as supporting SDG 3 (healthy lives and wellbeing), SDG 4 (quality education and lifelong learning), and SDG 8 (good jobs and economic growth), this public policy agenda directly supports SDG 16 (peaceful and inclusive societies) through our support for 7

8 rule of law at national and international levels, and working with governments to prevent violence, combat terrorism, and fight cybercrime. Additional Information The Global Goals for Sustainable Development Microsoft Corporate Citizenship 8

9 Annex 1: Microsoft and the SDGs SDG People Products Operations Partners Communities Governance 1. No Poverty 2. No Hunger 3. Good Health 4. Quality Education 5. Gender Equality 6. Clean Water & Sanitation 7.Renewable Energy 8. Good Jobs & Economic Growth 9. Infrastructure & Innovation 10. Reduced Inequality 11.Sustainable Cities 12. Responsible Consumption 13. Climate Action 14. Life Below Water 15. Life on Land 16. Peace and Justice 17. Partnerships for the Goals 9

10 Annex 2. Sustainable Development Goals 1. No Poverty End poverty in all its forms everywhere 2. No Hunger End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture 3. Good Health Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages 4. Quality Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning Education opportunities for all 5. Gender Equality Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls 6. Clean Water and Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all Sanitation 7. Renewable Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all Energy 8. Good Jobs & Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and Economic Growth productive employment and decent work for all 9. Infrastructure Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and Innovation and foster innovation 10. Reduced Reduce inequality within and among countries Inequality 11. Sustainable Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable Cities 12. Responsible Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns Consumption 13. Climate Action Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts 14. Life Below Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for Water sustainable development 15. Life on Land Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss 16. Peace and Justice 17. Partnerships for the Goals Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development 10