Our carbon footprint

The main contribution to our carbon footprint is the consumption of electricity to run our network. To offset this entirely by financial means – through, for example, funding renewable energy programmes – would be too expensive. We therefore concentrate on reducing and conserving energy.

During the year our business grew significantly with the addition of broadband and well over 1 million new customers over the past two years.

We have completed studies that help us better understand our carbon footprint. Our assessments included the total energy consumption and impact of:

• Our business.
• Selected suppliers (distributors of O2 goods).
• Mobile customers, as measured by the number of phones they are using through our network, per active sim card.

However, we have yet to apply measurement to our broadband business which involves far greater use of energy-hungry data services.

We have continued our efforts to reduce electricity consumption and use renewable energy where possible, but challenges remain, including:

• Long-term contracts with our energy suppliers which prevented us from sourcing sufficient quantities of renewable energy until July 2008.
• The introduction of broadband
• The roll out of our network.

In 2007 we negotiated new energy contracts with Scottish and Southern Energy which come into effect on July 1, 2008. These will provide more plentiful sources of renewable energy.  Our use of renewables will therefore increase to 100 per cent of all electricity supplied through directly procured electricity.

Based on estimations and extrapolation methods. Includes road business travel only. 
Calculations based on the DEFRA conversion factor - for consistency the updated 2007
conversion factors have not been used. Our electricity consumption has increased following
the opening of our new contact centre in Glasgow, expansion of our mobile network,
acquisition of Be Broadband and increasing the number of retail stores.