Sun sheds light on latest CSR report

Tech vendor Sun Microsystems has released its 2007 corporate social responsibility (CSR) report (and PDF here), which highlights the actions it’s taking.

It plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2012, from its US operations–it calculates that it emits some 230,000+ metric tons of the stuff. So it’s switching lighting, installing solar and doing some other bits and bobs. All good.

It also talks about workplace diversity (one in five employees are female, and 22% of VPs and above are too). And it makes all the right noises about all kinds of other things.

But when one gets down to the details, it’s hard not to feel a little let down by the lack of precise goals. They’re all nice sounding things, but hard targets would make them rather more laudable. For example, under “Stated goals” it includes these: “Finalize our renewable energy strategy”; “Establish targets and incentives for increased procurement of eco-friendly office supplies”; “Implement waste management evaluation/measurement
programs”, and so on.

And for others, it’s hard not to think that this wasn’t necessarily something that required any work, such as this goal: “Ensure that all contract suppliers are ISO 14001 certified”, which under the progress column reports: “All contract suppliers are ISO 14001 certified.” Gosh, sounds like that was a tough one!

But we’re nitpicking. It’s good that Sun is taking actions — all of which are voluntary — and is informing us about them. It’s only the first year it’s doing so (its debut CSR report came out in January). Let’s hope that next year it gives it a little more teeth.