Month: August 2023

Originally published in SEE’s Global Impact Report

At SEE® (formerly Sealed Air), we are developing a caring, high-performance growth culture guided by our purpose and focused on creating long-term value for our stakeholders and society. We are working to ensure our global culture embraces diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). At SEE, our people matter. Diversity is a business strength and facilitates creativity and innovation, which is at the core of our strategy. We are creating a workplace where everyone belongs and can reach their full potential. We foster our diversity, equity and inclusion culture in all aspects of our operations. We are committed to valuing the contributions of all employees, providing fair treatment and equal access, and creating work environments that enable the full potential and well-being of all employees.

Commitment to Pay Equity

As part of our DEI Pledge, we are committed to championing equal pay for work of equal value, which assesses equal pay for similar work based on comparable, bona-fide job-related factors such as geographic location, career tenure, and education level. In 2021, we conducted our bi-annual global compensation equity analysis to identify potential pay gaps that were not attributable to bona-fide job-related factors. Identified inequities are mitigated to close the gaps and compensation processes are evaluated for unintended bias and continuously improved to prevent future adverse impact.

In addition to the compensation equity analysis, as part of our annual performance review and compensation cycle, we perform adverse impact assessments to evaluate any potential biases that may be present which impact performance evaluations and compensation awards.

Our assessment showed no significant trends of pay inequity for gender or diversity groups across the organization. Based on our proactive approach and continuous improvements in pay reviews and processes, our goal is to eliminate pay inequities not attributable to bona-fide job-related factors in support of our commitment to equal pay work of equal value across our organization.

SEE’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Pledge

Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Pledge consists of bold but achievable goals supported by a global governance structure that drives adoption and engagement across the organization. Our 2025 Pledge is our compass point and consists of five specific objectives that prioritize certain metrics and process enablement within our strategy:

Build a more inclusive culture with our employees across the globeIncrease gender diversity across employees globally to more than 30% by 2025Increase the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in our U.S. workforce to above 35% by 2025Lead with a senior leadership team that reflects the cultural diversity of our global footprintChampion equal pay for work of equal value across our organization

As of December 31, 2021, 25% of SEE’s global workforce was female and 34% of SEE’s U.S. workforce belonged to racial and ethnic minority groups. U.S. workforce data is reported in the company’s EEO-1 report.

DEI Council

We established a DEI Council in late 2020, which consists of 11 business leaders representing regions where SEE operates around the globe. The DEI Council is chaired by our CEO and President Ted Doheny in partnership with the company’s Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary.

Engagement and Inclusion Survey

In support of the company’s DEI Pledge to build a more inclusive culture across the globe, SEE conducted a survey focused on engagement and inclusion which was completed by more than 14,000 employees. The survey provided feedback on topics such as trust, respect, opportunity, diversity, and inclusion. Together with HR partners, DEI Council members analyzed the survey results and developed action plans to further improve employee engagement and inclusion. The DEI Council developed a framework for DEI Courageous Conversations with employees, including a moderator guide, as well as training and other materials for each region.

Courageous Conversations

The Courageous Conversations initiative invites employees to join a discussion where they can speak honestly and candidly about their own experiences regarding inequality and social justice issues. These conversations are designed to encourage mutual learning and understanding by creating a safe space to share different perspectives and allow employees to check their assumptions and biases. The DEI Council established Courageous Conversations to aid in the development of an open and transparent culture at SEE.

Gender Equity Network

SEE’s Gender Equity Network (GEN) has been in existence for more than 10 years. The purpose of GEN is to create a high-performance culture that embraces gender equity and inclusion. The broadened scope of the group includes equity, allyship, and intersectionality with all genders and LGBTQ+ employees.

DEI Awareness

We are incorporating DEI fundamentals and concepts into applicable internal training courses such as new employee onboarding, supervisor training, and leadership development. The DEI Council is developing a required DEI curriculum for professional employees in 2022. The goal of the curriculum is to raise awareness of DEI principles and develop inclusive leadership skills for managers.

CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion

SEE is a signatory of the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion™ initiative, a corporate commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Read SEE’s Global Impact Report here.

Learn more about SEE’s ESG efforts here.

 

AI tools like ChatGPT are grabbing headlines, but other AI techniques and tools specifically designed for enterprises are quietly helping companies meet their sustainability goals. Classic AI is already being used widely today in various use cases, and generative AI is evolving rapidly to address new classes of use cases.

I previously led technical teams that helped customers with their AI implementations. When I started a role as a leader for sustainability in Expert Labs, our professional technology services organization, I saw the potential for AI to help with energy efficiency, decarbonization, and waste reduction. Discover the current and emerging use cases for AI in waste management, optimization, energy reduction and ESG reporting.

Learn more about AI-powered sustainability solutions here.

How AI is helping businesses accelerate their sustainability journey today

Asset management: Whether it’s for utility infrastructure or factory floor machinery, timely intervention can prolong the life of an asset; reducing the volume of waste sent to landfill and the environmental impact of creating a replacement. AI solutions work by collecting asset performance data and feeding it into machine learning models, which can predict asset health and risk of failure.Inventory management: Transportation uses energy;in addition, perishable goods may need to be refrigerated in transit and storage. Inventory optimization is important to ensure you have enough stock while also meeting customer demand. At the same time, you want to reduce the carbon footprint associated with moving and storing stock. AI helps address this problem by combining aspects like demand forecasting, last–mile delivery, and routing optimization.Schedule optimization: This use case is like inventory management but addresses the challenge of ensuring that you have the appropriate alignment of talent. If we think about asset maintenance, for example, the questions are which technicians are available, where, and how should their work be prioritized. It’s not about minimizing travel. Instead, it’s better to prioritize a more distant asset for repair because that asset has a higher cost or could fail sooner. AI can tackle problems like asset maintenance efficiently.Anomaly detection: Some manufacturers have zero-defect goals. If a part is defective or assembled incorrectly, it might not be possible to salvage or recycle it. Image and video recognition systems can use AI to monitor each stage of manufacture, catching any discrepancies as early as possible. As well as wasted materials, additional energy is consumed when parts have to be reworked or remade. This use case shows how AI can help by processing unstructured image and video data in addition to structured data in the previous examples.Compute optimization: Data centers consume a huge amount of electricity.By using AI to understand compute demand over time, it becomes possible to optimize the use of computing and cooling resources.  Matching resources to demand more closely helps to save energy.

Where to next?

Over the next year or so, I expect to see companies deploying generative AI applications that help with a new class of use cases to meet their sustainability goals. Some companies are already working on them.

The first among these is using intelligent document understanding to process sustainability information. Companies use several different frameworks to report their environmental impact in a standardized way. It’s a time-consuming process to collect relevant information and produce ESG reports. Generative AI software retrieves and summarizes text information from various business systems, including supplier systems, and maps it to the reporting frameworks, with the option for human review.

On the other side, AI streamlines processing information already compiled in environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) reports. A company could combine purchase order information with a supplier’s ESG report. For example, if you know you’re responsible for half of a supplier’s turnover you can use their ESG reports to estimate your responsibility for scope 3 emissions.

For investors interested in green finance, AI could process ESG reports in bulk to create a recommended shortlist of companies with a stronger environmental posture. In an advanced use case, generative AI models fine-tuned with a company’s sustainability policies could power an advisor application for activities such as supplier selection.

Foundation large language models (LLMs), fine-tuned with domain-specific data, are likely to play an important role in intelligent text processing applications like these.

Foundation models using geospatial data are also likely to make their mark in the coming year or so. These models will be valuable for predicting flood zones, forest fires, and other climate risks. Businesses in sectors including agriculture, retail, utilities, and financial services will be able to use these models for risk assessment and mitigation.

As companies adopt generative AI in these new use cases, they also need to pay attention to a new set of risks that are emerging, ranging from potential privacy concerns to a lack of factuality. A Responsible AI approach and an AI Governance framework are both needed to ensure guardrails are in place for the responsible use of both Classic and generative AI.

Sustainability goals and other business goals go hand in hand. For many of these use cases, there is a close relationship between sustainability and cost. Reducing energy, avoiding waste, and optimizing resources have financial benefits as well as environmental advantages. Using new sustainability applications powered by AI, companies will find it easier to make decisions that are aligned with their sustainability goals.

Read the power of AI: Sustainability