Corporate social responsibility
Managing social, ethical and environmental issues in a way that grows shareholder value, builds our brand and helps us and our customers become more sustainable is very important to us.
This section,
together with the broad statement on social, environmental and ethical matters, conforms to the
Association of British Insurers’
disclosure guidelines on social responsibility. More detailed information about
our social, ethical and environmental performance is available in our independently
verified 2007 Sustainability Report at www.bt.com/betterworld
We invest significant resources in our CSR programmes and it is vital that we continue to be forward looking and responsible in our everyday operations and maintain our reputation for excellence. For a number of years we have measured the link between customer satisfaction and CSR performance. Customers who
believe that BT takes its responsibility to society seriously are 49% more likely to be ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied with BT.
During the 2007 financial year, BT was ranked as the top telecommunications company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the sixth year in a row. (The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes rank companies for their success in managing social, ethical and environmental issues for competitive advantage.) We also hold the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of our contribution to sustainable development, and in the 2006/07 Business in the
Community Corporate Responsibility, Environment and Community indexes, BT is one of only four companies out of 100 to score over 95% on all six dimensions. We were also named for the first time as the leading
corporate organisation for sustainability reporting in a survey published by SustainAbility, in association with UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) and Standard & Poor’s.
CSR Strategy
During the 2007 financial year, the implementation of our revised CSR strategy, which was discussed and agreed by the Board, was a top priority. There are four key strands to this strategy: maintaining current momentum, tackling climate change, enabling sustainable economic growth and enabling a more inclusive
society – all issues to which we believe we can make a positive contribution.
Maintaining current momentum
CSR touches every part of our business – from the way we interact with our customers, suppliers and partners, look after our people, give back to communities and support charities such as ChildLine and UNICEF, right through to our practical concern for the environment.
We commit a minimum of 1% of our UK pre-tax profits to activities which support society. We provided a total of £22 million designed to benefit society in the 2007 financial year, of which £3 million was charitable donations. Our key performance indicator for a number of years has been based on our
contribution. In the 2007 financial year, we added a new indicator to measure the effectiveness of our investment.
Our community investment strategy aims to help individuals and communities make a better world through improved communications skills and technology. A key strand of this is our Better World campaign which has brought together our education programme (which provides free resources for teachers, pupils and
parents and in-school activities with drama groups and BT volunteers, both in the UK and internationally) and other activities for young people. To date, we have involved over three million pupils at more than 12,000 schools.
ChildLine, a UK charity, receives 4,500 calls every day but lack of funds means that many hundreds go unanswered. We are working with ChildLine on a campaign to ensure that every child’s call for help is answered. In the 2007 financial year, we raised
£2 million for ChildLine and also raised money for There4Me,
an online counselling service for children run by the NSPCC. We also helped Comic Relief, Sport Relief and Children in Need run successful telethons which raised over £80 million for good causes around the globe.
In the 2007 financial year, as part of our Better World campaign, we launched our first global development partnership with UNICEF. Community projects to bring education, ICT (information and communications technology) and communications skills to disadvantaged children will initially focus on South Africa, to
be followed by Brazil and China in subsequent years. BT is investing £1.5 million over three years and this will be enhanced by fundraising activities by our employees around the world.
We recognise that we have a responsibility to the environment and we continue actively to manage our waste reduction and recycling. During the 2007 financial year, we received an income of £4.5 million from our recycling activities, offset against the £5.2 million we spent managing our waste contracts, recycling our
waste and sending waste to landfill.
Waste
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2004 |
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2005 |
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2006 |
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2007 |
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Total
waste (tonnes) |
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107,303 |
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110,622 |
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102,005 |
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94,928 |
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Total
waste recycled (tonnes) |
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27,626 |
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37,421 |
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42,340 |
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40,007 |
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%
recycled |
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26% |
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34% |
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42% |
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42% |
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Tackling climate
change
BT is currently responsible for over
0.7% of the UK’s total electricity consumption so we are well placed to
make a significant contribution by actively reducing our carbon emissions. In
fact, we have been actively managing our UK CO2 emissions for a number
of years – they are currently 60% below their 1996 levels. However, given
the scale of the climate change challenge we face, we have committed to achieving
an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions from our 1996 baseline by 2016.
As we
transform our business and increasingly provide innovative new wave services,
our energy consumption could increase as a result, for example, of the growth
in our data centres. Consequently, we have conducted an audit of the energy
consumption of these data centres and are implementing energy saving recommendations. We will
also be helping and encouraging our customers, employees and suppliers to play
their part and this includes encouraging our suppliers to develop products that
emit lower levels of carbon. And we have launched a website to enable people to
calculate their carbon footprint – www.bt.com/climatechange
The renewal
of our green energy contract until 2010 means that approximately 50% of our electricity
needs in the UK will be met by renewable sources and 50% from combined heat and
power.
The following table shows BT’s CO2 emissions as defined in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and therefore includes not only the CO2 emitted directly by BT, but also that emitted in the production of the electricity purchased by us.
CO2 emissions
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2004 |
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2005 |
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2006 |
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2007 |
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Total
(UK only – million tonnes) |
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0.94 |
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0.76 |
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0.64 |
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0.64 |
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%
below 1996 |
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42% |
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53% |
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60% |
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60% |
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Tonnes
per £1m turnover |
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50 |
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41 |
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33 |
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31 |
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Our Chief Executive, Ben Verwaayen,
chairs the CBI’s climate change task force, which has been established to
set the agenda for business’s approach to climate change and will make wide-ranging
recommendations to the UK Government, the CBI and businesses later in 2007.
Enabling sustainable economic growth
Enabling growth that benefits society – in both the developed and developing worlds – within environmental limits is a new area of focus for BT. In the 2008 financial year, we will be integrating sustainability into our business processes such as product and proposition development. As part of this programme, we
are also looking at the issue of obsolescence in the ICT industry.
Enabling a more inclusive society
We believe that ICT has a role to play in creating a more inclusive society, helping everyone get a fair chance. Work on this part of our CSR strategy is at an early stage, but we are looking at:
| • |
what we need to do to build up our digital inclusion activities in the UK to help even more people get online. For a number of years, our key performance indicator for digital inclusion related to levels of broadband penetration. As these now stand at more than 99.9%, we have introduced a new target: to reduce the number of
digitally excluded people in the UK from 36% to 32.4% (a reduction of 10%) in three years. |
| • |
involving
less advantaged and minority groups in ICT-enabled work |
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which new
markets/services give all members of society the same freedom and opportunities
to communicate |
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helping the
voluntary and charity sectors to become more effective through the application
of ICT |
| • |
working with
partners and customers to release the power of diversity within our supply
chain. |
We
believe that an inclusive approach to product design is good for customers and
good for business. We are proud, for example, of our reputation for developing
products that can be used by all our customers, regardless of age or ability.
For example, we offer a wide range of phones with accessible features. Our Age
and Disability Action team works to raise awareness within BT of the importance
of inclusive design in services ranging from billing to broadband and has been
working with The Centre for Inclusive Technology and Design on the development
of a toolkit to help designers and others involved in product development, and
to produce a general guide for inclusive design for businesses.
CSR Risks
For a number of years we have maintained
a CSR risk register. During the 2007 financial year, we continued to develop
our knowledge and understanding of our CSR risks. Our most significant CSR risks
continue to be:
| • |
breach of the code of business ethics |
| • |
supply chain
working conditions. |
Each
of these risks has an owner and a mitigation strategy in place. These risks
are not regarded as material in relation to the group and consequently are not
included in Group risk factors.
CSR opportunities
The increasing importance of sustainability
issues both inside and outside BT is leading to a much greater focus on the
opportunities that CSR provides as well as the risks that need to be managed.
This is not only in relation to building competitive advantage by growing our
brand and reputation for CSR, but also in terms of commercial marketplace opportunities.
We believe
that ICT has a positive role to play as part of the solution as individuals
and organisations look for more sustainable ways of communicating, working and
living.
We are
planning to offer our business customers a carbon audit which will measure their
carbon footprint and explore ways in which the use of ICT can reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. Products such as remote working and teleconferencing, for example,
play an important part in creating sustainable businesses. |
