On November 30, 2020, the first day of the Federal Government's Digital Summit 2020 took place, which focused on the topic of "improving sustainability through digitization".
One forum was organized by the "Consumer Policy in the Digital World"-platform group and dealt with the topic of corporate digital responsibility. ConPolicy managing director Prof. Dr. Christian Thorun moderated the panel discussion with members of the CDR-initiative of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection. Participants were Christine Lambrecht (Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection), Birgit Klesper (Senior Vice President Group Corporate Responsibility, Deutsche Telekom AG), Kate Heiny (Director of Sustainability, Zalando) and Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander Brink (University Professor for Business and Business Ethics, University of Bayreuth).
The discussion showed that digitization must be shaped actively to actually serve the common good. In this context, companies have a special responsibility. They need to take into account the positive as well as the negative effects of digitization early on in their development of new digital business models, products and services. The company examples from Deutsche Telekom and Zalando showed how this is already implemented today. The legislator needs to take on a double role in this context: creating legal requirements where necessary and at the same time promoting responsible corporate management that goes beyond what is legally required. It was emphasized that this is exactly what the BMJV's CDR initiative is about.
Further information on the CDR initiative of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection can be found here (German).