And now, of course, a very special welcome to our six finalists in the O2 Community Awards 2005.   Today is about recognising your outstanding achievements, and the difference that you are making to the communities involved.  You devote your time, your energy and your skills - and have shown a commitment and enthusiasm that goes far beyond your lives at work.

I can guarantee that when our audience hears the stories behind your nominations, they will agree with me that each of you is quite remarkable.  You are all winners in my book.

Later, Peter Erskine will introduce each of our finalists, together with a series of short films, followed by the announcement of this year’s overall winner.

Before then, we’ll be hearing from two guest speakers whom I’m delighted to have with us today.  Caroline Casey from the Aisling Foundation will be giving us her very personal experiences of how business can have a positive impact on communities.

Our other speaker is Willie Murphy from O2 Ireland – last year’s winner of the O2 Community Awards. We’ll be finding out what winning the Award has meant for him, and about his activities over the past twelve months.

Before we move on, I think we should take a few minutes to remind ourselves of why this event is central to what O2 is all about.  Why do we believe that making a contribution to the community is so important? Shouldn’t a business simply concern itself with selling its products and services?

In many ways the answer to that is yes.  The most fundamental contribution a business can make to society is to be successful in what it does. This means serving its local markets well, generating income and investment, taking care of its employees and producing safe and appropriate products and services.

Do we do those things at O2?  I’d like to think so.

We operate in one of the most dynamic areas of the economy.  We all recognise that mobile is a global phenomenon, which is having a positive impact on economies, and in people’s everyday lives. Mobile is inclusive, and available to everyone - there are now more than two billion mobile users around the world.

As part of this expanding market, O2 provides products and services that people value.  This is borne out by our growing customer base - O2 now has more than 25 million customers from all walks of life, both consumers and business users – and our customers are at the heart of our business.

I also believe that our products and services are a force for good.  Every day, we help our customers to carry out their business or simply keep in touch.  We help people who are isolated or vulnerable to remain in contact with the world.

Our services can even help save lives.  In the terrible bombings in London on July 7th, O2 Airwave identified that something had happened almost immediately, and had an incident room running within 30 minutes. There were more than 1000 Airwave users at the scene, and our service allowed them to stay in communication.  Our police helpline handled more than 50,000 calls in the wake of the Asian tsunami.  We provided the platform for the Live 8 text ticketing competition, and handled approaching 2 million text message entries.  And our range of services is increasing all the time.

So the first way a company can make a difference is by being successful at what it does, and I think we are doing quite well on that count...
 
But in today’s world, that alone is not enough.  Our customers, our stakeholders and our people/employees expect us to conduct our affairs in a responsible way.

In this respect we’ve already achieved a lot.  Particularly in tackling the issues surrounding mobile that affect us all.  We try to protect the vulnerable, and encourage parents to supervise their children’s spending and mobile usage.  We promote awareness by engaging with charities, child safety campaigners, governments, regulators, content providers and parental groups.  We offer mobile filters and bars, to give our customers choice.  We constantly monitor the health debate, and help to fund independent research.  Wherever we can, we try to lead the debate; and keep our customers involved.

Protecting the environment for future generations is another key area where our actions can make a difference. This is something that I am passionate about.  At my last company - Severn Trent - we introduced a range of programmes that enabled us to become a ‘leading environmental services group’.  Here at O2, I am personally committed to equalling and surpassing that record. 

Already, we encourage the use of renewable energies; we manage our waste carefully; and have recycling programmes in place across the business. We are the highest rated telecoms player in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index – which monitors sustainability issues worldwide; and last year, we became the first UK mobile operator to achieve the ISO14001 environmental standard across all of our businesses. These are great achievements, and give us something to build upon in the years ahead.

The other major area in which business can make a difference is by engaging with the communities around us.  This includes the communities where we are based, where our people live or where we purchase our products and services. The notion of what constitutes “our community” is becoming increasingly global – for example, our supply chain brings us into contact with companies across the world.  Our challenge is to balance our impact within communities; and where possible to improve those we come into contact with.

This brings us right back to the purpose of today.  Peter will tell you more about the Community Awards themselves.  I would like to highlight some of the other ways in which we strive to make a difference in our ‘communities’.

As a company, we support a wide range of organisations across the group. Many of them aim to give young people a better chance in life.  Each of our businesses selects its own organisation to support, for a minimum period of one year.

O2 Airwave provides volunteers to the National Trust; and also supports Child Victims of Crime - the only national police children's charity, which seeks to support any child who has been a victim of, or traumatised by, crime in the UK.

O2 Centre is helping Rainforest Concern to finance a vital project in the Ecuadorian rainforest – donating funds raised via its mobile phone recycling schemes. This has enabled the planting of 594 hectares of native tress, supporting 1000 families. 

O2 Ireland sponsored the first ‘Ability Awards’, recognising best practice in employing people with disabilities.   I’m sure that Caroline will mention this.  O2 Ireland will also be working with Irish Autism Action in the near future.

On the Isle of Man, Manx Telecom employees are raising money for a new hospice which will include the island’s first children’s unit.

O2 Germany works with the German Children’s and Youth Foundation, and has worked on the award winning ‘SCHOLA-21’ programme.  They also support the “Polly and Fred” schools programme, which teaches and encourages children how to use a mobile phone responsibly.

And finally, O2 UK supports the youth charity Weston Spirit.  There are now more than 180 O2 people involved in a ground breaking mentoring programme with local schools in Slough and Leeds, Bury, and Liverpool.  

I think this approach is a good one.  By focusing on selected charities, and building strong relationships with them over a period of time, I believe both O2, and our partner organisations, will achieve tangible benefits – and really make a difference.

The time and skills our people give are crucial to their success.  I know that those involved find the experience rewarding and great fun. The enthusiasm that our people show inspires their departments, too.  These programmes also set O2 apart in the eyes of our customers.  It increases the value of our brand to shareholders, customers and society at large – it really does make good business sense. 

So thank you all for achieving such tremendous results.

I’d like to mention one last aspect of our community work before handing you over to Caroline.

Whilst most of our community programmes are about active involvement, we also realise that funding is important, and that organisations appreciate financial support.

O2’s  “Can Do Matching” programme is a scheme whereby the company matches the funds that our people raise themselves.  This is an increasingly popular concept that has raised more than £130K to date across the Group. 

In the UK, we operate “Can Do Giving” – an easy way for O2 people to support their favourite charities.  Contributions are exempt from tax, and include a further 20% donation from O2.  More than 400 of our UK workforce have already joined this scheme; and it was recently rolled out to Ireland and the Isle of Man.  It’s a good start, and I hope we can encourage more of our people to get involved.

These schemes are an important way to help local communities.  Often, it is the larger, better known charities that tend to benefit most from corporate donations.  But these programmes provide an opportunity for smaller, less well known organisations, with whom our people have a special relationship, to benefit too.

So why are our community activities so important to us? Because we said we’d do business in a different way right from the start.  Because we believe it’s the right thing to do and our customers believe it too.  Because our people want to get involved, and get a great deal of satisfaction from it.  And because it makes every one of us proud to be associated with O2. 

Behaving in a responsible way isn’t an optional extra at O2. It’s an integral part of who we are.

I hope you all enjoy today, and are inspired by what you see.  I know I am.  

I’d now like to ask Caroline Casey from the Aisling Foundation to come on stage and share her personal experiences of how business can be a positive force in the community; and of the enormous differences that one individual can make.

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