Community

Action in our communities

There is a strong sense of community spirit within O2 and we encourage active involvement in all regions, at all levels.

Our Group community investment programme – Can Do in the Community – supports charities and causes that naturally link with the social, environmental and ethical responsibilities we face, such as consumer protection, employment and environmental conservation.

We encourage employee involvement through our Can Do Matching and Can Do Giving schemes and local programmes of volunteering. In the UK, in 2005/06, we launched a new way of giving - Pennies from Heaven – where employees can donate the spare pennies from their monthly salaries to the nominated charity Weston Spirit.
 
We tend to support educational causes or charitable activity that can benefit from mobile services and we also try to enable our employees to contribute sustainably to their communities over time.

We established several new charity partnerships and projects during the year. These were selected and are supported by our local businesses in each market.

During 2005/06 we improved the way we report on our community investment activity. We have introduced a new online data-management tool, which notes all cash and in-kind donations as well as paid hours from employee volunteering across the whole Group. Every quarter we report on our community investment activity through the O2 Corporate Responsibility Forum and the O2 Executive Committee, in accordance with the London Benchmarking Group Model (LBG). The O2 Board is briefed on community investment activities every six months.

In 2005/06, our total cash donations as O2 Group reached £1,941,347. The total value of our in-kind donations was £174,874, and the total time in paid hours was £49,680 (employee volunteers measured in paid hours at the value of £20 per head, per hour). Using the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) Community investment standard, we have categorised 88 per cent of our contributions as cash, nine per cent as in-kind donations and three per cent as employee time.

Contribution across the Group (%)

a) Employee volunteers measured in paid hours at the value of £20 per head, per hour.   

 

Main areas of involvement (%)