Electricity

The electricity we consume to run our base stations and switching centres is our biggest environmental effect.

Our networks account for around 85 per cent of our non-transport energy consumption, with offices and retail stores accounting for the rest.

Our targets are to:

• Reduce electricity consumption by 5 per cent in offices and call centres per employee by March 2007.
  
  Progress has been made calculating electricity used by offices and call centres per full-time-employee. Current progress shows an 8 per cent decrease in electricity use.

• Achieve 5 per cent reduction in electricity in our network by March 2008.
  
  Progress has been made calculating electricity used by networks per base station. Current progress shows a 4 per cent reduction.

We will discontinue the target for energy reduction in our networks, in anticipation of the results of a new energy-efficiency assessment of our 2G and 3G networks.

Overall our electricity consumption has increased by 19 per cent since 2004/05. This is due to growth of the business and the greater uptake of energy-intensive mobile data services. Reducing our energy consumption and its effects on climate change while continuing to grow the business, is our greatest environmental challenge. This is why we continue to place such emphasis on increasing the proportion of electricity use that is generated from renewable sources – such as wind power – that create virtually no greenhouse gases.

We are very encouraged by the progress we are making in this area: despite the increase in our overall electricity consumption, we have increased the proportion of renewables from 17 per cent to 38 per cent. This means that the equivalent CO2 emissions have actually fallen by over 16,000 tonnes, or around 8 per cent compared with last year.

Electricity consumption^a

a) Electricity consumption is reported for all premises and operations where O2 is the direct customer. Some rented premises may be excluded.

Total electricity consumption from renewable sources^b

b) Electricity generated from renewable sources excludes electricity generated from fossil and nuclear fuels.  In the UK all electricity qualifying as exempt from the Climate Change Levy is assumed to be renewable.