Elana Tyrangiel, HPE’s Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, discusses inaugural Human Rights Report

IN THIS ARTICLE

• HPE incorporates respect for human rights throughout our organization – starting from the very top
• The report explores our approach and impact related to our updated list of six salient human rights risks 
• HPE’s Global Human Rights Policy has long been among the most robust in the industry

Today Hewlett Packard Enterprise released our first ever Human Rights Report. We want to win the right way, every day, which means maintaining steadfast commitments to ethics, transparency, and responsible business practices. This report reflects these values and showcases our progress. Implementing strong human rights protections is how we live our values and an essential part of fulfilling our purpose to advance the way people live and work.

HPE’s Global Human Rights Policy, aligned to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, has long been among the most robust in the industry. We also recognize that safeguarding human rights in our value chain is a process of continuous improvement. Over the last few years, we’ve made many improvements to drive our business and industry toward even higher standards. To name a few, HPE:
 

• Adopted and operationalized principles for the ethical development, deployment, and use of artificial intelligence (AI)
  
  
• Set social impact goals for our supply chain
  
  
• Collaborated with peers and other stakeholders to promote worker well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic
  
  
• Launched an Anti-slavery Volunteering Initiative with non-profits around the world
  
  
• Built our internal processes for identifying, assessing, and mitigating sales with a potential risk of product misuse

We sat down with Elana Tyrangiel, HPE’s Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, to discuss the report and HPE’s approach to human rights.

Why are you publishing this report now, and what are some highlights?

HPE’s leadership is prioritizing human rights, and our stakeholders including investors and customers are asking for detailed disclosures on our practices and impact. We hope that this report will not only keep us accountable and push us to continue to better our processes, but also encourage our peers to be more transparent. This report also provides a one-stop-shop for sharing all key human rights due diligence and a way to hold ourselves accountable to demonstrating our progress and effectiveness.

The report explores our approach and impact related to our updated list of six salient human rights risks: responsible product development; responsible use; modern slavery and decent work; responsible sourcing of minerals; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.  HPE has a long tradition of transparency (for instance, see our recently released Living Progress report), and because human rights is a priority for us, a report made sense. 

How does HPE incorporate human rights throughout the organization?

HPE incorporates respect for human rights throughout our organization – starting from the very top. We consider human rights in so many aspects of our business—from how we source materials used in the manufacture of our products, to our customers’ end use of our products, to how we treat and train our own team members. We are also deeply involved with industry groups such as the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) to harness the power of collective action across our industry and beyond.

How does HPE consider the views of third parties HPE’s in upholding human rights?

The views of third-party stakeholders are always important in how we go about addressing human rights impacts. The most valuable opinions are those of rights-holders, such as representatives of vulnerable groups, who provide meaningful feedback that helps us to continuously improve our processes and adjust our priorities to meet their needs. Recently, we identified and engaged with a series of rights-holder representatives and topical experts to get feedback on our understanding and approach to managing risks to specific vulnerable groups. Their ideas and constructive feedback helped us focus our projects in a more impactful way,  launch our work to understand and drive positive impact through clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right, apply a vulnerable groups lens to every human rights impact assessment we do, and inform and improve our Commitment to Respect the Rights of Marginalized Groups.

Workers are also critical partners. We have prioritized worker engagement, introducing new ways to gather regular feedback from workers at key supplier sites. Worker feedback offers invaluable insights into areas such as supplier pay systems, living wages, and the inextricable link between wages and working hours. 

We also value how independent organizations view our program. A range of organizations have recognized HPE’s leadership on human rights. These recognitions include:

• First place ranking among global ICT companies in KnowTheChain in 2022
  
  
• First place ranking in Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) ICT benchmark and placed in the top 5 across all industries (covering 127 of the world’s largest companies) in 2022
  
  
• 96th percentile for human rights and 100th percentile for social reporting in the Dow Jones’ Sustainability Index (DJSI), securing overall second place in our industry in 2022
  
  
• Five-time consecutive recipient of Ethisphere’s Most Ethical Companies recognition, starting with 2019
  
  
• Only repeat winner of the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Stop Slavery Award, 2016 and 2021

Recognition by third-party organizations that specialize in measuring processes and reporting helps us make sure we are on the right path. These validate that the programs we’ve put in place are working and help guide us in our journey to continue making progress across our company and supply chain.

How does HPE maintain ethical standards with the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

In 2022, we refined our approach to assessing ethical AI and rolled out AI Ethical Principles training for HPE team members. In 2023, we further advanced this initiative by launching three new sub-committees to help us operationalize our principles for AI we develop (products), AI we source to use (processes), and AI we source to incorporate into our solutions (partners).

AI ethics assessments are at the core of the responsible product development program. We leverage team members’ awareness and internal alert mechanisms to identify potential use of AI internally and in new products and partnerships that may pose a risk to human rights, and our AI Ethics Working Group works with those partners to assess risk and recommend mitigation measures. Our widely promoted training and principles provide an avenue for raising awareness and building human rights by design with product and solutions teams and business partners.

As the world keeps changing and new risks are identified, and rights-holders voice new priorities, we work to put processes in place to provide solutions. Our goal is to be a force for good in the world and we believe that responsibility must be taken seriously and upheld throughout our organization and our value chain.

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