 |
|||
|
|
|
|
| Environment and sustainability |
|||
"Business is now moving towards balancing its aspirations for growth with care for the environment, by providing a responsible solution for the goods that it sells. The Fonebak scheme is a good step towards that goal in the mobile telecoms sector." Gordon Shields, Chief Executive, Shields Environmental, UK |
 |
||
|
|||
We aim to operate in a sustainable way across mmO2, meeting the needs of the present without compromising those of the future. A programme of continual improvement underpins our Group-wide environment strategy. We aim to reduce the impact of our operations on the environment and to prevent pollution. Ultimate responsibility for our environmental performance rests with Peter Erskine, our CEO. Dave McGlade, CEO of O2 UK, has recently been appointed environmental champion for the business as a whole and it is his responsibility to see that each of the operating companies implements the environmental strategy effectively whilst complying with relevant national legislation. An environmental forum is held every six months where the environmental champions for each of the operating businesses meet to review progress and performance. The forum also reports twice a year to the Executive Committee and the Board. Our environmental commitment is spelt out within other parts of this website. It commits us publicly to:
A main focus for our work is certification to the international environmental management standard ISO14001:1996. We have won Group corporate and O2 UK certification to this standard, which provides the elements to establish an effective and systematic approach to environmental management. We have set December 2004 as the target for all our other businesses across Europe to gain registration. The environmental management of our operating businesses is reviewed annually through third party audits that form part of the operational risk reviews conducted within our insurance programme.  
|
|||
 |
|||
Measuring our impact During the year we developed a set of metrics to measure our environmental performance. This is the first major exercise we have undertaken across the entire Group to assess our performance in key areas like the reduction of emissions, water and energy consumption and the usage of renewable forms of power. The process of gathering data is at different stages in different parts of the Group but this initial exercise has been completed and provides us with a baseline from which to measure our future performance in reducing our environmental impact. Our network accounts for more than 80 per cent of our energy consumption, with the remaining consumption associated with our offices, call centres and shops. We aim to manage our energy consumption efficiently and look to use increasing amounts of renewable energy. In the UK energy from renewable sources stands at 5 per cent while in Germany the figure is 7 per cent. We have a target to increase these levels in the UK by 1.5 per cent a year. The proportion of renewable energy used by O2 Ireland is much higher thanks to a supply agreement with Eirtricity, which specialises in supplying power from renewable sources. Here 23 per cent of the power we use across our operations is renewable, while the proportion used by our remote base stations is even higher at 40 per cent. For the Group as a whole we have set ourselves the target of achieving 10 per cent renewable energy use by 2008. This and greater energy efficiency will allow us to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases in line with government commitments on global warming made in response to the Kyoto protocols. We will also look at the use of alternative gases as we work to achieve this objective and have also set ourselves a separate target of reducing refrigerant and CFC gases by 10 per cent per unit of turnover by March 2010. We have introduced a waste recycling scheme at all of our major UK sites to include paper, cans and plastic cups and are aiming to increase the amount of material recycled by 10 per cent within the next two years. We also encourage our customers to recycle their handsets and accessories. Following our involvement in Fonebak, at least 20,000 phones have been refurbished for re-use with the remainder recycled for materials recovery, leaving only a very small amount destined for waste disposal via landfill. We are aiming to double the number of phones recycled under this scheme in the current financial year. During the year we recorded no significant spills of chemicals, oils and fuels in our operations. There are no reports to mmO2 of fines or enforcement actions imposed on the Company in relation to environmental performance. We have set ourselves the target of ensuring all stored fuel has suitable secondary protection to reduce the risk of leaks and spills. We aim to have no spills of diesel from oil tanks by the end of this year and to continue to meet the requirements of environmental agencies. One way we can improve our environmental performance is to cut down the amount of travelling our employees do in the course of their work. This will help us to cut fuel use, reduce emissions and lower any safety risks to employees. We plan to carry out a feasibility study on a variety of green travel options and to monitor high mileage employees to see if we can use other forms of communications to reduce their dependence on travel. In line with this effort we have set ourselves a target of the amount of audio, video and web conferencing we do by 10 per cent by 2005 and to monitor the resultant reduction in mileage against figures for 2002/03. CO2 Emissions from energy and transport table |
|||
|
|||
Protecting bio-diversity We take account of the impact the development of our network may have on sensitive flora and fauna. Work to develop our network in remote and wild areas of the Highlands and Islands, for instance, has involved a long process of consultation and negotiation with communities and key stakeholders, including Scottish National Heritage. Development was also preceded by a checklist used to provide a tool for considering environmental aspects of developments. This work illustrates the balance we have to strike between meeting people's desire for connection to our service and their equal desire to protect sensitive spaces. The launch of the O2 brand during the year provided us with a way to celebrate the Company's new identity, our values and the environment. Employees came up with a scheme to create six new forests across Europe to mark the launch of the brand. Working with Future Forests, we have pledged to plant 15,000 trees in these new forests providing new green spaces for some of the communities we work in to enjoy. The forests have been developed using native species to preserve local bio-diversity. More than half our employees are founding members of the forests and many have made personal dedications in an online register to mark their involvement in the project. At Christmas 2002 we invited UK customers to become involved in the scheme, adding a further 2,000 trees to our forests. In Ireland, we worked with Future Forests again as part of our sponsorship of O2 in the Park (2002), a free concert in Dublin's Phoenix Park that drew an audience of 80,000 pop fans. We wanted to make sure this event was carbon neutral and we will be planting a further 3,000 trees across Ireland to compensate for the concert's carbon impact. O2 will continue to support this event in 2003. |
|||
|
|||
Consulting with communities The roll out of our network is a sensitive issue that we aim to handle with care and through early and detailed consultations with local authorities and communities. In the UK we adhere to the Ten Commitments drawn up by the Mobile Operators Association. These commit us to:
  
Each autumn we publish a schedule of our current network and the sites we hope to develop during the following 12 months in the UK, encouraging local planners and representatives to work with our community relations managers on our plans. We are required to work within local planning requirements and have been involved in the UK with the Government and the Scottish Executive, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Welsh Assembly on the drafting of codes of practice for the industry. We plan the life cycle of our network equipment carefully and where possible try to re-use equipment when we develop new infrastructure. Increasingly communities are keen, as we are, to see us re-use existing sites rather than build new ones and to share sites with other mobile operators. While site sharing means less infrastructure and cost savings, the environmental impact can sometimes be increased. For example sharing a mast with another operator working on a different frequency requires us to put a 5m separation between antennae which means masts must be taller. The arrival of third generation (3G) mobile phone systems, where all operators will be in the same frequency band for the first time, means this may be less of a problem and could lead to greater site sharing. We are actively engaged in pursuing this whenever it presents a viable option. In particular, we have sought to maximise 3G site sharing in the UK and Germany by entering into a 3G infrastructure sharing deal with T-Mobile. We have developed a range of ways to help blend our transmitters and masts into the natural and built environment, to minimise their visual impact. In an urban setting, antennae will often be sited on the top or sides of buildings. We have developed a range of masts operating at different power levels including microcells and picocells, the latter used in busy and crowded places. In rural locations, we attempt to work in partnership with local communities to minimise the impact of our masts. A novel design by a bursary student for our mast on the M42 at Tamworth, in the UK, has won a Royal Society of Arts award for industrial design innovation. |
|||
|
|||
 |
||
|
|
|
 |
||
| Recovering What mobile can do >> |
||
 |
||
|
||
 |
||
| PDF: THE REPORT > |
||