Sustainability is a global challenge that affects every person and organization on the planet. To help overcome this challenge, WithSecure™ (formerly known as F-Secure Business) has created a W/Sustainability program that commits it to operating as an ethical, equitable, and environmentally responsible global citizen.
W/Sustainability is a program that embeds sustainability and transparency into WithSecure’s strategy and operations. The program was built based on surveys and in-depth interviews with customers, investors, leaders, and WithSecure™ employees, to understand the relevance of areas of sustainability for various stakeholders.
As a result of these consultations, W/Sustainability was grouped into three themes:
- Safer and greener digital world: Minimizing the energy consumed by WithSecure’s solutions while maximising the security outcomes to customers, and sharing cyber security knowledge with those who need it.
- Truly equitable workplace: Ensuring all WithSecure™ employees feel they can bring their best and true self to work and enjoy opportunities to learn and grow.
- Responsibly run business: Maintaining the highest ethical standards to ensure WithSecure™ chooses partners responsibly and strives to minimize its environmental footprint everywhere it can.
“Protecting digital society is our most important contribution to a more sustainable world. However, we don’t want to stop there. Our W/Sustainability program ensures that sustainability is embedded in all our decisions, and that the impact of these activities is transparent in our reporting,” explained WithSecure™ President and CEO Juhani Hintikka.
Examples of concrete initiatives implemented as part of W/Sustainability include:
- Established partnerships that allow WithSecure™ personnel to provide pro-bono security services to non-governmental organizations and other groups working with vulnerable communities.
- Created an internal “green coding” program that aims to measure and reduce the amount of energy consumed by software.
- WithSecure’s partnership with Tapio Lehtinen Sailing and its sponsorship of the Galiana WithSecure sailboat to promote sustainable, carbon-neutral solutions.
WithSecure™ Head of Product Management Leszek Tasiemski, who spearheads the company’s green coding efforts, feels that many software vendors could benefit from implementing a similar approach to their own software development.
“As of today, there are no independent standards when it comes to energy efficiency of software, which I think makes the opportunity to create more sustainable code easy for engineers to miss. But I’m hoping that as our own solutions demonstrate the potential to measure efficiency and eventually save energy through more sustainable coding practices, more companies will consider implementing a similar approach to their own development operations. We are open to collaborate on this initiative with other vendors,” he said.