November 23, 2010

At Intel, we are notorious for loving our acronyms. So much so that we actually have a whole online Intel acronym dictionary on our internal intranet site. My husband cringes every time I tell him that “I’ll take that AR”, or am going to “have to ZBB something”, or that I have to work late because I have a meeting with “TMG” or “GPP.” Last week, I got to temporarily swap my favorite acronym CSR, for RSE. Why? Because RSE stands for Responsibilidad Social Entepresarial and I was at Intel’s offices in Costa Rica.

I have written in previous blogs about how Intel works to balance the global and local in our RSE efforts - from our reporting, to stakeholder engagement processes, to program design. Given our long history of RSE in Costa Rica and the maturity of the programs there, I’ve been very familiar with the work of our local RSE team and connect with them regularly over phone and email. But in truth, as great as technology is at connecting us, there’s really no substitute for visiting the site and the surrounding community in person. As my colleague Patricia remarked to me over breakfast featuring a fantastically delicious torta, you need to visit to see, hear, and “taste” the culture (ok, probably did a little too much of the latter admittedly, but oh well….)

So, during my few days in Costa Rica, I attended a mixture of external events and internal meetings around the various aspects of RSE - from education and community, to environment and supplier responsibility. I started my first day with a tour of the town and also got my first tour of the Intel offices. Intel is famous for our “copy-exactly” model, so offices and cubicles look pretty much the same everywhere in the world (I was working in one of the cubicles there and for a moment almost forgot I was in a different country because I swear the fabric on the walls was the exact same one I have in my own cubicle back in AZ .) There are some differences for sure, including the orchids in the entryway instead of the agaves back at home. But I did enjoy seeing the familiar visual evidence of employee engagement and communications around RSE, including the constant safety reminders, information on volunteering, and the electronics recycling bins in the lobbies.

I met with a number of groups internally, including our teams that manage our employee volunteer and education programs, internal employee communications, our environmental health and safety systems, and our local materials purchasing group which is working on a number of green purchasing initiatives with suppliers. My colleague Ana in EHS, toured me through the water treatment systems, recycling and safety procedures at the site, so I could see up close the controls and systems in place to monitor and track our performance.

Outside of Intel, I also had the opportunity to attend a local American Chamber of Commerce awards luncheon, where the VP of Costa Rica discussed the growing importance of RSE, both globally and to the sustainable development of Costa Rica. I led a best practices session on CSR reporting with a number of other local companies and multinationals with significant operations in the country, sharing Intel’s experiences in reporting using the Global Reporting Initiative, our report localization process, and our use of social media.

I also went with our Community Affairs Manager and three other Intel employees to observe a planning meeting for a large-scale employee volunteer event at a nursing home facility coming up in December. In true Intel style (we are uber-planners and project managers at heart), my colleagues visited with the staff to determine their needs and best projects for about 80 employees next month, debating how many people were needed for each task, what additional materials were needed, and reviewing any potential safety concerns. I look forward to hopefully having them share back the results and photos here on the blog after the event’s completed next week.

In addition to the issues of environment and community, no trip would have been complete without covering the topic of education, since this is a strategic RSE focus area for Intel. Fortunately for me, a number of my other Latin American colleagues were also in town for the Intel and Inter-American Development Bank sponsored Latin America Educator Academy (watch for the upcoming related blog post from my colleague Mariana on this event). I went with them to the National Science Fair, where a number of Intel volunteers from the Costa Rica site served as volunteer judges, and I got to talk with a number of students about their projects, which ranged on topics from robotics to solar energy, to a team that invented their own biodegrable plastic. Seriously, nothing like spending a day talking to brilliant kids like this to make me feel like a complete underachiever.

On the last day of the educator academy, we visited the INBioparque, a local biodiversity institute, to discuss the importance of science education, and learned about biodiversity in the country (and saw some pretty scary iguanas, poisonous frogs, colorful birds, and lots of turtles.) A great way to end my week - and of course, would have been a crime to leave the country without seeing any of the flora or fauna, even if it was a work trip.

So, many thanks to my colleagues for a great visit and valuable exchange of ideas and planning discussions, for their patience with letting my practice my Spanish, and for the great insights into how we manage RSE in Intel Costa Rica and the rest of the region. Looking forward to my next visit back to the country already - Pura Vida!

Posted By: Suzanne Fallender

Yves garenne 03am November 29 RSE stands also in French for "Responsabilité Sociétale de l'Entreprise" (http://orse.org) All the best.

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