Environment
Environment
At O2 we are committed to doing our best to protect the environment for future generations.
“Saving energy is not only good for the environment: it is good for the bottom line too.”
Richard Barrington, Sun Microsystems, member of the UK Parliament All Party Environment Group and the UK Government’s Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption and Production, speaking at Telefónica O2 Europe’s internal annual corporate responsibility conference in Karlovy Vary, January 2007.
Employees expect us to take this approach and, increasingly, it is what our customers want too:
- Over 50 per cent of respondents to a corporate responsibility survey of the British public put environmental protection high on the list of issues they expect companies to act on.
- Some 40 per cent of O2 customers think it is appropriate for us to support the environment .1
Climate change – which most scientists agree is due in large part to carbon emissions - is regarded as mankind’s greatest challenge.
According to the Stern Report (2006), the effects of climate change could cost the world between 5 per cent and 20 per cent of GDP, prompting the worst recession since the 1920s. Action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the worst of global warming would cost 1 per cent of GDP. With no action, each tonne of carbon dioxide we emit will cause at least £45 ($85) of damage.
We welcome pressure for businesses to scale up their approach to the environment. We support the European Union’s targets for reducing carbon emissions by 2020 and the UK’s Draft Climate Change Bill, which aims to establish legally binding targets to reduce emissions by 60 per cent within 40 years.
We aim to minimise our carbon footprint by reducing energy consumption, using renewable energy, supporting non-carbon energy schemes, and promoting good practice in the countries where we operate.
Some of our community investment projects in the UK, Germany, Ireland and on the Isle of Man focus on the environment and we run several green projects that involve our employees.
Recently, O2 established:
- New energy agreements in the UK, Germany and Ireland to increase the proportion of renewable energy we buy.
- Carbon offsetting projects for Germany, the Isle of Man and Airwave to complement our carbon emission reduction strategies.
- New schemes in the UK to separate plastics, paper and general waste at offices and call centres so we can reduce levels of waste that go to landfill.
During the year Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Peter Erskine committed to the Climate Group’s We’re In This Together campaign. The project aims to galvanise leading UK businesses – including Tesco, Sky and M&S – to offer their customers more green choices. Each member undertook to develop a new product or service by March 2007, and we have since announced our Energy Saver option for UK customers.
In 2006, we won the Grand Prix inaugural Green Award for our Letter Box packaging scheme. The award highlighted O2’s new method of sending mobile phones to customers in specially designed ‘green’ packages, which fit comfortably through letterboxes.
O2 UK realised that consumers do not need or want a phone re-charger every time they get a new phone. Removing these made parcels less bulky and cut potential electronic waste. The trial of the first Nokia handset was so successful that we’re looking to expand the trial in 2007.
1 Survey conducted by MORI in 2006 of the British public
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