Corporate Digital Responsibility
I was listening to a podcast a while ago by Directors on Digital where Lee Hickin discussed the need for a new level of ethics to be built into your digital processes. His emphasis was to ensure your ethical responsibilities transferred into your digital products, processes, or delivery. In Lee saying this I found myself connecting to how would I ensure a client’s ethical governance is reflected in their digital twin solution. On the surface this sounds pretty simple, but when you start to consider the levels of moral judgement and the behaviours you need to align with, it can become a very bespoke task and one often forgotten with technology solutions. So, this article is to explore the topic a little further and share what I have learnt.
Corporate Digital Responsibility
If we think about corporate social responsibility (CSR) we generally refer to: Ethical Responsibility, Legal Responsibility and Economic Responsibility (Schwartz & Carroll). Corporate digital responsibility is identical to those core areas. We have ethical responsibilities such as “doing good” with digital technologies, we have legal responsibilities ranging from privacy rights to negating slave labor used to make devices and the many standards to adhere to, and we have economic responsibilities in terms of performance outcomes and return on investment. But how is the Built Environment industry responding to the ethical alignment in their digital twin solutions?
Ethical Responsibility
Ethical responsibility translates to mean many different things to different businesses but to give it an overarching description it is to ensure a business is operating in a fair and ethical manner. Which for me the ‘operates’ portion is the focus. A business that is delivering on their ethical responsibility will have embedded governance mechanisms that create or cultivate fair and ethical behaviour. The problem is, many digital transformations, or diversification strategies into digital, seem to have forgotten to align these new approaches. Which can lead to catastrophic impacts to brand, to people and society, and to our environment.
In completing additional study last year, I took two classes that resonated with this topic: Ethics and Governance and Civil and Criminal Law in the Digital World. What was scary is just how many businesses had been affected negatively by digital innovation as it didn’t align to the ethical processes in the same way as their traditional services or products. Some had made extremely negative impacts to the environment and paid a significant price to recover. Whilst others were still trying to recover from the incident 10 plus years later. So, what would I look out for when putting together a digital twin strategy?
Tiers of Ethical Decision Making or Moral Reasoning
There are generally three levels of ethical decision making: the universal level, the business/community level, and the individual level. At a universal level you are considering your digital twin strategy with a wholistic view of every stakeholder both primary and secondary. If you create this digital twin then you need to consider how will it impact everyone/or thing. At a business level you are using community principles, how will it affect the business and the current business model. Will it change or impact the different departments or how you carry out your services. At the individual level you are considering whether the implementation of your particular digital twin use case might create a negative impact and whether you morally agree with it. When you have these three levels of decision making it grows a culture of high ethical maturity.
Universal Considerations
Currently, at a universal level we have industry bodies that have started to release guidance that assists with government or company policy design. If we think of a policy as a plan or guide for action, then there are two sets of principles that are fairly recent that have been released, the Gemini Principles from the UK, and the Sustainable Digitalisation Principles from here in Australia. I’m sure there are a lot more but these two float to the surface for me. Out of the two the UK version seems to align a little closer to the corporate digital responsibility I am referring to in this article.
In the UK the Center for Digital Built Britain have invested in nine Gemini principles which are in three categories of Purpose, Trust, and Function. The purpose has a connection to delivering public good and providing value and insights. This lens on a digital twin policy or strategy is telling us to consider shared human values, not just the value of delivering the digital twin itself but the impacts the twin can make on society and our environment – the greater good. As we enter the world of distributed digital twins and a new digital twin economy in industry 5.0, embedding moral reasoning that ensures the greater good is being considered and how to conduct that consideration is the overarching first step to defining your corporate digital responsibility. An item to consider in this space is an alteration to your code of ethics that uses digital-specific language.
Community/Business Considerations
The business level is how is this connected or aligned to the business. Does your digital twin strategy align with your business strategies, commitments, laws, and standards we need to adhere to? Does it create genuine and shared value for your business and customers? With the volume, velocity and variety of data involved in the digital twin solutions we have a lot more areas of decision making to be aware of. This ranges from managing privacy and meeting new consumer data rights through to protecting our critical assets. Management and leaders of a business need to focus on how to achieve this level of ethical decision making by placing rules for people to follow. An item to consider is verification and validation workflows that include both human and digital (AI/machine learning/blockchain/smart contracts) mechanisms.
Individual Considerations and Agency
Then at an individual level you want to empower your staff to make decisions for your digital twin solution that also meets your ethical standards and expectations. You want them to have a level of moral agency that allows them to speak up and let you know when the solution may not be creating the most positive impact. The reason for this, is the smallest piece of your digital twin solution could change the entire ethical performance. It could be an algorithm not showing the full test results, through to data storage and query mechanisms not being separated enough to deliver in accordance with the privacy or consumer data rights. An item to consider in this space is to have continuous learning and development and provide employees with a reporting mechanism so they can escalate concerns. This provides confidence in reporting and helps to embed the ethical culture needed in a digitally enabled world.
Every single level of decision-making matters and makes an impact.
So, what I have learnt going through this and then looking at what is being produced in industry? There are a lot of digital twin solutions at a state or jurisdiction level right down to an asset level that simply don’t meet or align with the ethical standards those businesses or government departments may have embedded into their corporate ethos. I’m not saying it will result in a negative reaction or a negative outcome because I can’t predict the future…no matter how hard I try. But what I am saying is to take some time when developing that digital policy or strategic business case to align it to your ethical culture. After all, you have worked so hard to create those behaviours you should ensure they meet the modern day processes the same way.
I hope you have found this short article interesting and insightful, but most of all, I hope you look at your digital twin or other digital policies and strategies and think about whether it matches your company’s ethical responsibilities.