The BT story

May 2013

You can download the BT Story as a PDF document

Introduction

The BT Story provides a summary of some of the key issues affecting the company today in the UK and across our growing global businesses.

The BT Story

BT is the major provider of telecommunications networks and services in the UK. But we are also a major global communications company, serving customers in more than 170 countries. We provide services to large corporate and public sector customers with operations across the world in a wide range of sectors such as banking and financial services, consumer packaged goods, logistics, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. Information about our presence in the different regions around the world appears later in the BT Story.

We have embraced fierce competition in our home markets and become an innovative and dynamic company competing in the converged markets of computing, IT and communications.

BT’s strategy is to drive broadband-based consumer services, become the ‘Brand for Business’ for UK SMEs, the wholesaler of choice and the best network provider. We aim to be a global leader through BT Global Services. And all this whilst being a responsible and sustainable business leader.

BT contributes around £3bn annually to the UK Exchequer.

BT has also just announced its new BT Sport TV channels, which will offer a range of sport including football, rugby, tennis and motor-cycle racing. More information can be found below.  

BT Sport

In May 2013 BT revealed its BT Sport channels: BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN, which will be offered free with BT Broadband. They will comprise 38 live and exclusive football matches from the Barclays Premier League including 18 ‘first pick’ matches and up to 69 live rugby matches from the Aviva Premiership, where BT will be the sole and exclusive broadcaster. The channels will be available from 1 August 2013.

This is the first time in more than 20 years that weekly live matches from the Barclays Premier League will be free to watch.

There will be live football from several other top leagues around the world including Germany, France, Italy and Brazil. There will also be FA Cup ties, the UEFA Europa League, Scottish Premier League plus WTA women’s tennis, action from the UFC, Moto GP, Women’s Super League football, Australian ‘A’ league soccer and action sport and lifestyle programming from Red Bull Media House.

BT’s aim is to increase the number of customers enjoying high quality sports on TV. Only one in five UK homes currently take a sports channel, possibly due to the high prices that have resulted from little real competition in the pay-TV market.

By offering BT Sport for free with BT broadband, BT hopes to appeal to the vast majority of UK homes, more than 20 million, who already have broadband as well as those who haven’t taken it to date. More than five million homes already take their broadband from BT and whilst the company will be rewarding current customers with this free service, it will also be encouraging customers of other ISPs to switch supplier.

BT Sport will be easily accessible direct from BT via our own TV service, Sky’s digital satellite platform and also online or via a new app enabling customers to enjoy the channels on the move or at home on their PCs, smartphones, tablets etc.

Customers who wish to watch BT Sport on their TVs will require a set top box. This will be a YouView or Vision+ box for BT TV customers or a Sky box if customers take the channels via Sky’s digital satellite platform.

Customers can order BT Sport now by calling 0800 400 440 or they can register their interest at www.btsport.com.

Broadband – investing in faster speeds and spreading coverage

BT provides services across the UK in a non-discriminatory way; our fibre network can be used by any communications provider (CP), BT’s competitors, to sell services to their customers.

We have committed £2.5bn of our own funds to roll out fibre-optic cable required for superfast broadband. This will deliver superfast broadband at speeds of up to 80 Mbps to two-thirds of UK premises by spring 2014, more than 18 months ahead of our original schedule, with speeds of up to 300 Mbps available on demand.

We are bidding for public funds and working with local authorities to extend that roll-out into areas where the commercial case for investment is more challenging: the ‘final third’. If successful in most of these bids, we believe we can get superfast broadband to more than 90% of UK premises.

We are now rolling out fibre to more than one million premises a quarter (100,000 premises each week!). This is one of the largest fibre programmes in the world without central Government support.

More than 99% of UK homes already have access to broadband. This is the best in the G8. Almost 18 million UK homes have a fixed broadband connection, this is around 65% of households, the figure was 12% in 2003. Around 9 out of 10 UK homes have access to more than 2Mbps, often substantially more, enough to stream standard quality television or video pictures.

Broadband access in rural areas

We want to provide much wider coverage for superfast broadband and we can reach more areas through public funding. We are looking to secure some of the funds Government will make available.

We welcome the Government’s plan to make £530m available in this parliament via Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) to extend fibre to what are otherwise non-commercially viable areas.

We believe it is possible to make fibre broadband available to more than 90% of UK premises by working with local councils and devolved governments. BT is bidding for BDUK funds to make that happen. The creation of partnerships with local authorities and a shared vision is critical; and arrangements in Northern Ireland and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly show this works.

We have successfully trialled ‘FTTP (fibre to the premises) on Demand’ in Cornwall. This service allows additional fibre to be run, on demand, all the way to a home or business in fibred areas rather than just to distribution cabinets, providing the customer with ultra-fast broadband. We have now announced the launch of FTTP on Demand to communications providers.

We have also recently completed a technology trial of 10 Gigabit FTTP capabilities to a business park in Cornwall over our normal FTTP network, demonstrating the ability of our current FTTP deployment to continue to deliver ever faster speeds if demand requires them.

Infrastructure sharing

BT made clear to Ofcom in December 2009 that it was willing to open its ducts to other companies. The first companies to trial deployment of their own high-speed broadband infrastructure using BT’s duct and pole network will be Sky and Call Flow, who have completed a trial intended to test the processes and practicalities, as well as the real costs involved in deploying their own next-generation access (NGA) network through the Openreach duct and pole infrastructure.

Other CPs are expected to try the product. Currently Openreach provides a managed NGA product across its infrastructure on an open platform to all its CP customers, including Sky and all other UK providers. This sharing offer applies for superfast broadband.

Although duct and pole sharing will not be the silver bullet to get fibre to every premise in the UK, these new products represent a positive step, opening our infrastructure to supply industry with an even wider range of different mechanisms for delivering fibre broadband. We expect that some bidders for BDUK funding may choose to use Openreach’s duct and pole sharing product to help them deliver NGA in the final third.

Net neutrality

Net Neutrality refers to the idea that the internet should be a level playing field, with all data carried over it treated in a non-discriminatory (‘neutral’) way by network operators, regardless of its source. In the UK and the rest of the EU, competitive broadband markets have made explicit regulation to enforce neutrality unnecessary. Ofcom confirmed in November 2012 that it saw no need for additional regulation, drawing on industry self-regulation in support.

BT is committed to an open internet, providing consumer choice while allowing commercial innovation. BT operates according to net neutrality principles, treating all traffic consistently, regardless of source, and is fully transparent about traffic we may manage in order to minimise network congestion.

Strong competition between ISPs means that net neutrality is irrelevant since customers can choose to go elsewhere if they are unhappy that a service is being restricted. In the UK, major ISPs such as BT, operate under a number of codes of practice which, together with Ofcom’s existing powers, safeguard neutrality. Network operators should be free to offer additional capabilities and differentiated service levels provided it is done on fair and reasonable terms.

Net neutrality would be a stifling form of new regulation in the UK and the rest of Europe. Traffic management is a vital tool for ISPs to manage quality of their internet services, and all UK ISPs are fully open about what traffic is managed and when.

Cyber security

BT has a reputation for high levels of trust and security, and is committed to providing security for both its own and its customers’ networks, systems and data to protect against cyber-attack and exploitation.

BT's key network services and products are converging onto a single architecture that enshrines comprehensive and cost-effective cyber-defence capabilities, allowing prevention, detection, disruption and response. The security we offer to customers builds on the best security practices already adopted by BT. We help governments across the world deliver their cyber strategies as they work towards legislation, regulation and contractual arrangements to facilitate and enable cyber-defence.

BT's network has always been underpinned by robust security controls and built-in resilience. We continue to work closely with all our suppliers, and governments where appropriate, to ensure that the security of the BT network is not compromised. We take into account cyber risks not arising from network and system electronic attack, but also from the supply-chain, physical access, and through personnel.

Mobility and convergence - allowing communications wherever you are

Computing and all forms of communication are ‘going wireless’ and will increasingly be available on the basis of what you want, where and when you want it. BT's wireless broadband footprint, BT Wi-fi, is the world’s largest public wi-fi network.We are the only broadband company in the UK to provide unlimited access at millions of BT Wi-fi hotspots as part of broadband packages.

We have over five million wi-fi hotspots in the UK and Ireland, plus more than three million international hotspots through our partner Fon We have the largest Wi-Fi network in the UK and believe this to be a critical asset in the infrastructure race of the future.

BT Wi-fi is available on and off the high street in homes, small businesses and many of the UK’s largest brands including Hilton, Network Rail and John Lewis and Game stores. We were the only public wi-fi provider on the Olympic Park and have 500k+ hotspots across London.

BT – the global company

BT Global Services is a global leader in managed networked IT services, operating globally and delivering locally. It employs around 20,000 people globally, with one of the largest professional services capabilities in the industry.

Over the last two years we have invested to improve our network, portfolio and services capabilities in the high growth economies of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. We have also accelerated our industry focus for customers in strategic sectors such as global banking and financial markets, government, health, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing & pharmaceuticals, global logistics, global mining, oil & gas and global systems integrators.

In too many countries we are still denied use of the incumbent’s access network under non-discriminatory terms and conditions: we are fighting for fair markets as we expand our business outside the UK.

BT Global Services in Europe

BT operates substantial domestic businesses in key markets in Europe. We have more than 13,000 employees supporting our customers in the region.

UK

BT Global Services (BTGS) is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of networked IT services for public, finance and corporate sector customers, offering extensive domestic voice, contact centre and IP VPN services. BTGS customers will be able to take advantage of the superfast broadband network (VDSL & GPON), which will be available to around two-thirds of the UK’s homes and businesses by end of 2014.

BTGS has around 1,800 UK customers connecting businesses and organisations in almost every sector of the British economy. In retail alone, our networks serve over 27,500 sites nationwide on behalf of 46 major chains. BT’s networks connect all the major retail banks and play a vital role in the supply chain of some of Britain’s largest manufacturers and logistics companies. Our network serves not only our customers’ British operations but also provides global connectivity to their sites in over 170 countries worldwide.

Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)

BT has operated in Belgium since 1988, in The Netherlands since 1989 and in Luxembourg since the late 90s. Around 1,200 people support BT from offices in Amsterdam, Brussels and Luxembourg, including approximately 450 professional services specialists within the BT Advise organisation. We operate domestic IP VPN and Ethernet services through BT’s global network and strong local assets including more than 5,700 km of fibre network in the Netherlands and a 1,100 km fibre backbone in Belgium. We have dual-data centre capability in the Netherlands and data centre capacity in Belgium, as well as a network operations centre in Amsterdam.

Germany and Austria

BT has operated in Germany since 1995. According to Current Analysis, it is “number 2” in the market for global IP and data services behind T-Systems, which belongs to local incumbent Deutsche Telekom. BT has an extensive high-speed network with its own metropolitan area networks in four major cities and three major data centres in Germany, including a brand new, highly energy-efficient site in Frankfurt opened in June 2012.

BT employs around 1,350 people and serves about 1,000 customers in Germany and Austria, including two thirds of the top German (DAX30) companies, some of the largest banks, insurance companies, chemical companies and technology groups. The German customer base includes big brands like BASF, Commerzbank, Deutsche Post DHL, HeidelbergCement, Media-Saturn, Munich Re and BMW.

France

In France, BTGS employs more than 2,000 people and serves 400 clients. Ninety per cent of France’s CAC40 companies are BT clients, including major French banks, utilities and industrial companies. 70 per cent of our French employees are professional services experts. We have a strong expertise in security in France, with 350 security specialists, and provide a wide range of managed security services. In France, we operate three data centres, a network operations centre and a security operations centre.

Italy

BTGS has been operating in Italy since the early 90s and employs around 1,100 people. BT is the only national player focused on business and is the main alternative to Telecom Italia. We have a 16 per cent market share in business data transmission and operate a fibre network with 15,000 km covering the whole of Italy.

We serve 2,000 large companies in Italy including ENI, Fiat Group, BNL, Mediaset, Mapei, NTV as well as the Justice and Agriculture ministries. We also serve more than 80,000 SMEs and operate five data centres with a total rack space of 13,000 sqm.

Spain & Portugal

BT employs around 1,000 people in Spain and Portugal providing services to 2,000 major enterprises, 31 of which are listed in Spain’s IBEX-35 index, and to over 30,000 small and medium enterprises. We are the leading alternative in the Spanish enterprise data transmission market with more than 21.2 per cent market share.

SEPE (Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal) has been the largest Spanish Government customer in Spain for the last 12 years, operating more than 800 branches in Spain providing unemployment services through our BT VPN network (data and voice).

BT provides ACCIONA, the renewable energy business, with domestic WAN, LAN and IP telephony services for 500 sites, including 40 wind farms. We are also providing BT Connect and BT One services, data services, voice and maintenance, to the Secretary of State for Public Administrations in Spain to connect more than 250 sites across the country.

Other European countries

BT also has operations in Switzerland, the Nordics, central & eastern Europe and Russia, where it supports local operations of global multinationals as well as locally based multinationals, such as Nestle, Novartis, Syngenta, Tetra Pak, Volvo, Ericsson, Arla Foods and others.

Latin America

BT operates in 22 Latin American countries and employs more than 1,000 people across the region, offering a wide range of networked IT services including IP infrastructure, application services, outsourcing solutions and business transformation.

BT has one of the largest satellite broadband coverage capabilities in Latin America with more than 24,000 sites, seven network operations centres providing monitoring and proactive diagnosis 24x7, a security operations centre in São Paulo, four data centres (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia), 190 points of presence and more than 40,000 customer connections.

BT serves more than 1,300 customers from public and private sectors and from different industry verticals including multinational companies such as Anglo American, Unilever, SAB Miller; Latin American companies such as Ecopetrol, Pão de Açúcar or Rede Energia and public sector organisations such as Correios (Brazilian Post Office), Caixa Econômica Federal (Brazil) and Vive Digital (Colombia).

Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa

Asia Pacific

BTGS has operated in the Asia Pacific region since 1985, with more than 3,000 employees based in the region supporting customers across 33 countries. On top of sales from offices in India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and Australia, BT operates five regional 24/7 service centres (Mumbai, Pune, Noida, Dalian and Sydney), and a global service centre providing support in Gurgaon, security operations centres in Gurgaon and Sydney, a research centre in Beijing and six new technology showcases.

BT recently announced the launch of a major Global IP Exchange (GIPx) hub in Singapore to meet the demand for growing traffic over its IP Exchange platform. This is the first full hub BT has deployed outside of UK, demonstrating the confidence BT has in the Asia Pacific region.

Communications regulatory frameworks in the Asia Pacific Region range from fully liberalised to closed monopolies. BT is working to encourage effective regulatory frameworks which foster competition and enable market access to all players.

Middle-East and Africa

BT has been operating in the Middle-East and Africa (MEA) since the 1980s. Today more than 300 employees support customers from three regional hubs in Istanbul, Dubai and Johannesburg.

BT has 21 network points of presence in MEA and new interconnection agreements further expanding network reach into Turkey and Sub-Saharan Africa. Ethernet services capabilities have been rolled out across 21 cities, including Istanbul, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Casablanca, Manama, Doha, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria

BT operates a regional satellite centre in Istanbul and a 24x7 network and customer support service centre in Durban, South Africa, supporting customers across the region. BT operates EBTIC, an innovation Centre in Abu Dhabi, in cooperation with Etisalat and Khalifa University.

USA and Canada

BT has had a presence in the US and Canada for over 20 years, operating its own network infrastructure. We have around 2,600 employees in the region and offices in more than 25 key cities. We also have 25 MPLS nodes across the US, making up one of the largest multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks of any carrier in the region. This expanded footprint enables us to reach over 80 per cent of key customer sites within a 200-mile radius, as well as extending coverage beyond the US with MPLS points of presence in Toronto and Mexico City.

We serve more than 1,000 customers in the US and Canada, including 73 per cent of Fortune 500 and 48 per cent of Fortune 1,000 companies, including Tommy Hilfiger, NYSE, Fujitsu, 7BR, Rexam, Syngenta, AstraZeneca and HO. Approximately 50 per cent of our top 2,000 customers have headquarters or major operations in the Americas including Credit Suisse, Pepsico, P&G, Unilever, Thomson Reuters, Schlumberger and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Ineffective regulation of business access continues to be BT’s biggest regulatory issue in the US. BT is reliant directly or indirectly in 90% of the cases on the incumbent operators to provide last mile access. The incumbents enjoy rates of return of anywhere between 60% and 170%, and the overearnings are used to subsidise wins and global expansion. On December 18, the FCC moved forward with a mandatory data request for special access. BT is in full support and hopes that the Commission will move quickly toward a decision that is fair to all US consumers.

The European Union Policy Agenda

The European Union (EU) has a significant influence on the policy and regulatory environment in which BT operates, with EU legislation setting the framework for areas as diverse as fibre access, spectrum, net neutrality, and Green ICT. Our focus is on an open, competitive, level playing field across the EU and across different communications platforms: a true Telecoms Single Market.

In the connected, knowledge-based economy, the ICT sector makes a major contribution to Europe’s competitiveness. This is recognised by the European Commission’s ‘Digital Agenda’ initiative which places ICT and Telecoms at the heart of Europe’s economic growth and recovery strategy. As well as promoting new high speed networks, EU policy-makers are showing increasing interest in online and consumer issues relating to cloud computing and new services. BT supports a balanced approach which does not impede development of new business models.

The Digital Agenda sets challenging goals for fast broadband deployment across the EU, and the European Commission is developing additional guidance on access to next generation fibre access networks which are important for the UK and the rest of Europe. BT supports a policy which encourages both investment and competition in innovative new networks. The Commission is also addressing how to improve the functioning of the Telecoms Single Market, and BT is encouraging them to drive for a true level playing field between countries, between the converging telecoms and media sectors, and for pan-EU business service provision. As part of this, competition at service-level will be essential if the full benefits of innovation are to be enjoyed not just by consumers, but businesses as well.

BT - in figures

	Full year to 31 Mar 2013	Full year to 31 Mar 2012	Full year to to 31 Mar 2011
	Revenue1	£18,253	£19,307	£20,076m
EBITDA1	£6,181	£6,064m	£5,886m
Profit before tax1	£2,694m	£2,421m	£2,083m
Capital expenditure	£2,438m	£2,594m	£2,590m
Normalised free cash flow2	£2,300m	£2,307m	£2,076m
Earnings per share1	26.6p	23.7p	21.0p
1 before specific items
2 before specific items, purchases of telecommunications licences, pension deficit payments and the cash tax benefit of pension deficit payments
BT shares closed at 278.0p on 28 March 2013, valuing the company at GBP21.9 billion. The shares rose 22.8% over the financial year, outperforming the FTSE100, which rose 11.2% over the same period.

 

Regulation and Openreach

Control of the access network in the UK is with Openreach, BT’s local network business, specifically set up to provide access network services and products on an equal basis to all the UK communications industry. Openreach installs, supports and maintains the wiring, fibre and connections which link tens of millions of homes and businesses in Britain to their communications providers' networks.

Openreach is also responsible for delivering the roll-out of BT’s fibre broadband network.

BT TV

BT TV gives viewers access to Freeview, on demand content through BT Vision, BT Sport, Catch up TV and for viewers with BT Infinity up to 18 additional channels.

BT Vision offers a 500Gb hard-disk set-top box to deliver pay-per-view and subscription video-on-demand services, digital terrestrial free-to-air and pay TV channels, the ability to pause live TV and record programming, communications and interactive services. BT Vision has over 5,500 shows available including the best UK and US TV shows, blockbuster (pay per view) and classic films, kids shows and music videos. Over 810,000 customers are connected to BT Vision. BT Sport includes BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN. Customers with BT TV and BT Infinity can receive an additional 18 channels and BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN in HD.

Youview

YouView is the joint venture between BT, the UK public service broadcasters, TalkTalk Group and Arqiva to develop and promote a new open standard for TV, combining broadcast and broadband television delivery. YouView was launched in July 2012. It is the fastest growing TV platform in the UK and is BT Vision’s strategic platform for the future.

We believe that YouView will transform the UK TV market, combining broadcast digital channels with catch-up, archive and on-demand content and interactive TV over broadband, free from public service broadcasters and from pay TV providers like BT Vision. It will give a far greater range of content providers access to the living room, creating unprecedented consumer choice. YouView will maximise choice for consumers, sustain the long-term future of free-to-air broadcasting and promote broadband take-up.

Pay TV

Ofcom’s decision in March 2010 to require Sky to wholesale its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels was welcome. However, it was disappointing that Sky Sports 3 and 4 were not included: the regulated price was too high, movie channels were excluded and no wholesale price requirement was set for HD channels.

We appealed to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) against the Ofcom decision. In August 2012, the CAT ruled against us. However, we are pleased that in April 2013 the Court of Appeal granted BT permission to appeal the CAT’s Pay TV Sports judgment and we look forward to explaining in the forthcoming trial why BT believes that the CAT’s judgment on this matter was incorrect.

By way of comparison, BT offers rival companies, including Sky, the right to rent BT lines at wholesale prices, so they can offer phone services to their customers. We want equivalent rights with regard to Sky – the opportunity to buy its content at a fair wholesale price and sell it to our customers. Sky is one of our biggest customers – we want to be one of its customers.

Metal Theft

Metal theft (copper, lead, etc) affects many industries (eg, power, transportation, water and communications), costing the UK economy millions of pounds. The safety and social impacts of gas pipes being ripped from houses, lead from churches and schools, roadway drain and manhole covers being taken, etc are immeasurable. There has been a significant increase in attacks on BT’s network across the UK, directly impacting us, our customers, and customers of other communications providers.

We welcome the introduction of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 as the old act was no longer fit for purpose. We will continue to work with Police forces around the UK as well as other responsible authorities to ensure a rapid and smooth implementation. We support the British Transport Police, working on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and their aims to make cable/metal increasingly difficult to steal, increase the risk to offenders (though tougher sentencing/better chance of being caught), reduce the value of the commodity to offenders, and reduce the attractiveness of stolen metal to scrap metal dealers.

BT in health

BT is a global player in the healthcare market. It the UK it has been a key partner of the National Health Service (NHS) for more than 60 years and is one of its largest suppliers of IT and communications. Our healthcare transformation experience means we can connect healthcare globally. From the largest and most complex IT project to helping introduce innovative telehealth solutions, few companies have the expertise and resources to work alongside healthcare providers across the world.

In the UK, we have helped the NHS put in place the infrastructure that underpins the service today but is also ready to support a more connected future. We have delivered the secure national broadband network, N3, one of the largest Virtual Private Networks in Europe with more than 51,000 connections. N3 provides secure, resilient access to the core of the PSN, the first step to enabling the 1.3 million users of the network to collaborate and share information with other organisations such as local authorities and social care providers.

The Spine, built and managed by BT, gives more than 900,000 healthcare professionals secure access to patient information. It supports the delivery of 683 million electronic prescriptions and 30 million hospital appointments.

In London and the south of England, our clinical information systems are being used by hundreds of thousands of NHS staff to provide better, safer care at more than 80 NHS organisations. We’ve worked with healthcare providers to develop a range of health-specific products and services, including telehealth and telecare, interoperability, analytics and mobility, which transform the way healthcare services are delivered.

We are expanding internationally, with a focus on Asia Pacific where we have created a health practice to co-ordinate all BT’s health activities in the region. We are making good progress with Serco Australia to install and manage the communications infrastructure and run a range of IT services for the new Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, one of the most technologically advanced medical and environmentally friendly facilities in the world. BT is also the IT partner for Connexion, Singapore’s first integrated healthcare and hospitality complex and a leading facility in the region.

For more information please visit the BT Health website at http://www.bt.com/health/

BT as a corporate citizen: Better Future

BT conducts itself in ways that benefit the company, its customers, society and the environment. Our Better Future programme is our commitment to use the power of communication to improve lives and ways of doing business, without it costing the earth. Being a responsible and sustainable business leader is one of BT’s six strategic priorities to grow the value of our business.

BT remains committed to giving the equivalent of 1% of pre-tax profits to good causes made through time, cash and in-kind contributions and this totalled just over £31.9m in 2012. This equates to 1.5% of our pre-tax profits, in addition to the £3bn or so that we pay to the Exchequer each year.

BT people provided 50,281 days of volunteering activity in the community in 2011/12 at an estimated value of £15.9M. We are committed to reducing the carbon intensity of our global business by 80% against 1997 levels by 2020.

Our achievements are recognised – for example, we are twice winners of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for our sustainability activities and have ‘Platinum Plus’ status from Business in the Community for our ongoing commitment to responsible business practice.

BT and climate change

BT uses significant amounts of energy to power our network and to heat, cool and power our buildings. We aim to reduce our energy costs and consumption as much as possible by improving energy efficiency. We also buy ‘green electricity’ and are installing onsite renewable technologies to help reduce our climate change impacts.

What BT does in this area counts, because we use about 0.7% of the UK’s electricity. We have reduced carbon emissions in the UK by 81% since 1997, well ahead of our target to achieve an 80% reduction in 2016. We will reduce the carbon intensity of our global business by 80% by 2020 (compared with 1997).

BT recently signed an agreement to purchase 100% renewable energy from npower. As part of this deal it has issued one of the world’s first electricity carbon labels. A-G colour coded labels provide consumers with visibility of the carbon content in their electricity. The BT electricity carbon label provides an excellent proof of concept for the scheme. If more consumers had visibility of the environmental impact of their electricity they would select cleaner energy and incentivise generators to invest in clean energy infrastructure. Such a system has worked successfully in driving low-carbon purchasing decisions in other markets such as white goods and vehicles.