Barbara Maigret, the company’s Global Head of Sustainability and CSR, says it understands the importance of making sustainability an integral part of its business model.
“2021 was the year for setting our strategy and planning the company’s journey for the medium to long term,” she says.
“With our inaugural Sustainability Report, we aim to increase transparency on progress to date and give our stakeholders – including customers, partners, employees, suppliers, shareholders, and communities – a better understanding of our approach to corporate social responsibility, aspiring to a more sustainable world and safer internet.”
Following a materiality assessment conducted in 2021 to identify and prioritize the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues most important to Fortinet’s operations and its stakeholders, the company has defined the following four primary impact areas:
Innovate for safe internet
Fortinet says it has continued to innovate on the industry’s broadest portfolio of cybersecurity solutions, adding eight new product families in 2021 alone.
It also regularly collaborates with numerous industry associations and groups, contributing to standardization and interoperability while sharing actionable threat intelligence with organizations such as the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) and the World Economic Center for Cybersecurity. Forum (WEF) and INTERPOL.
Fortinet is committed to environmentally responsible behavior by reducing the footprint of its products and solutions, adopting reliable approaches to its day-to-day operations, and helping its wider value chain move towards circularity.
In 2021, Fortinet publicly announced its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030 using renewable energy, energy and carbon efficiency methodologies, and emissions compensation programs. This target is related to the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from the company’s facilities worcompany’sn accordance with the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi).
Fortinet’s other environments include introducing biodegradable packaging into the company’s premium products company’s company’s waste and reducingcompany’sonsumption. Through these initiatives, the company ensures that each generation of Fortinet products uses less energy than the previous generation. This is the case with the FortiGate F-series, where an average of 61 percent has reduced energy consumption.
Grow an inclusive cybersecurity workforce.
Fortinet says that as part of its ongoing commitment to transparency and bringing more women into its cyber workforce, the company released its workforce data in 2021, highlighting a 71.6% increase in female hires compared to 2020.
The company also focuses on closing the cybersecurity skills gap among a broad and diverse audience. The company is committed to raising awareness of the benefits of cybersecurity careers and improving opportunities for underrepresented groups through its Education Outreach program and training offered through the Fortinet Training Institute.
As a result, in 2021, Fortinet strengthened its commitment to address the cybersecurity skills gap by pledging to train one million people worldwide over the next five years.
Fortinet says it employs corporate governance practices to conduct business ethically and diligently to ensure compliance with all laws and human rights. These practices are overseen by Fortinet’s board of directors and reviewed by our internaFortinet’sunctional ethics committee. The company has also issued a specific human rights policy to strengthen its commitment to responsible product use and ethical business conduct throughout its value chain.
