On the way to the world's first ethical self-driving car - Part 1

“Do good and talk about it” is a mantra in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. But what sounds simple in theory is often challenging in practice. Perhaps you and your company are currently facing the question of where to start with your commitment to society - and how to talk about it the best way. Or your company is already doing what it can to protect environment and climate and is socially committed, but is not getting through to important stakeholders. Successful CSR is therefore not just a question of good practice, but also of effective communication. We asked our partners at Compass Ethics how they help companies tackle their ethical challenges and share our own insights on how you can ensure your CSR messages have the impact they deserve.

In the first part of our two-part article, Dr. Ted Lechterman of Compass Ethics explains how he and his colleagues help companies overcome their ethical challenges. Click here for the second part.

- Nerses Chopurian, managing director at PIO

Autonomous driving - the ethical gray area

As a management consultancy, we at Compass Ethics help organizations of all kinds to overcome difficult ethical challenges and develop strong principles and codes of conduct for their actions. Many of our clients turn to us for our expertise in emerging technologies - including Voyage Velocity, the subject of this case study.

When the American start-up first approached us in 2020 with global ambitions, self-driving cars were still largely unregulated - with no fixed standards for their use in sight yet. Unanswered questions were driving the public: Are autonomous vehicles safe? What are their advantages? Will their use cost jobs in the transportation industry? Will companies or governments use them to spy on their customers' and citizens' data?

The road to the first ethical autonomous vehicle

Voyage Velocity realized that it needed to gain and keep the trust of its stakeholders if it wanted to survive and grow in this uncertain market. The company needed to communicate that autonomous vehicles are a safe technology if its manufacturers take their responsibilities seriously. It had realized that it would not be able to win and keep the trust of its stakeholders through clever words alone. It needed to develop an ethics strategy and build a reputation for ethical integrity. To do this, the company wanted to understand the ethical risks and trade-offs associated with the technology it was developing and establish a robust policy and framework for dealing with them. So our task was to help Voyage Velocity evolve the world's first ethical autonomous vehicle.

Step by step to your own ethical stance

The ethical issues that concern you and your company are probably quite different. Nevertheless, in our work we see again and again that companies face similar challenges when it comes to engaging in CSR and ethics. That is why we would like to show you below how we proceeded in the case of Voyage Velocity - and how you too can tackle your company's ethical commitment in a structured way.

Step 1: Understand and prioritize ethical risks

Some clients turn to us because they need help with specific challenges. This could be the creation of due diligence frameworks for sales, foundations for promoting diversity in the workforce or situational advice on specific controversies.

Others, like Voyage Velocity, needed our help to navigate and prioritize a wide range of ethical dilemmas. In the first phase of our cooperation, one of our first steps was to create an ethical map. This allowed us to identify the most pressing ethical issues for Voyage Velocity's key products and services.

Here's how we went about it:

• Through interviews with Voyage Velocity executives, we learned about the unique selling points of its products and services, its strengths, weaknesses and the issues that keep the company's leaders up at night.

• Next, our technology ethics experts conducted a scenario analysis to map out the company's ethical concerns across 26 dimensions, with a focus on ethical risks, trade-offs and opportunities.

• Finally, we designed a model for the company to prioritize the 26 identified dimensions and narrow them down to seven focus areas to be addressed as the project progressed.

Step 2: Deep dives

Once we had identified the company's ethical challenges and ranked them in order of importance, the next step was to analyze them in depth. In a series of interviews, we asked Voyage Velocity managers as well as employees responsible for specific problem areas and reviewed internal company documents. This gave us a detailed understanding of how the unique characteristics of Voyage Velocity's products, its strategic objectives, governance structures, processes and external pressures influenced the ethical risks, trade-offs and opportunities. During this step, we supplemented our own expertise with the insights of other researchers and consulted relevant literature.

Step 3: Find and prepare an ethics strategy

As a result of our analysis, we formulated a set of ethical guidelines for Voyage Velocity. These allow the company to deal responsibly with legal gray areas and establish ethical corporate governance based on the latest research and sound moral arguments. We also developed frameworks, decision-making tools and dashboards for the company to track the impact of its products and services and measure progress. We worked closely with an internal working group at Voyage Velocity made up of senior executives from different functional areas of the company. The working group reported directly to the CEO and the Management Board.

Results and outlook

Through our advice, Voyage Velocity was able to develop an organized, systematic and rigorous ethical approach. This enabled the company to

• identify and prioritize its ethical risks, trade-offs and opportunities, as well as its relevant stakeholder groups;

• transform ethical fears and gut feelings into informed positions and policies for ethically questionable areas;

• develop systems and processes for dealing with current and future ethical dilemmas;

• create a foundation to position itself as a thought leader in ethically controversial areas.

Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered for Voyage Velocity in the future - as they do for many of our clients once our advice is complete. From this point onwards, they are regularly faced with the task of implementing our advice and defending it both internally and externally. If they lack the backing of their management, employees who are entrusted with the implementation of CSR have a difficult time. They have to do a lot of convincing. Internally, negative attitudes usually come from predictable sources, such as teams that are responsible for ensuring efficiency in production or generating sales and consider ethical principles to be a mere cost factor. However, external critics who are unaware that a company has developed an ethics strategy or who are generally skeptical about CSR and corporate ethics also put up resistance. This is where our internal ethics consultancy reaches its limits. That's why we at Compass Ethics recognize that for companies that want to act ethically, working with communications experts is essential to promote their efforts both inside and outside the organization.

 *Company name changed