Climate change is widely recognised as one of the greatest global sustainability challenges. Its implications are far-reaching for the environment, for people, and for the global economy – of which Vodafone is a part.
As a multinational communications company, Vodafone can play an important role in helping to tackle climate change. Our climate change strategy has three elements:
Cut our own emissions by 50%: Limiting our own contribution to climate change is a priority. We have reviewed a range of options and are developing a strategy to reduce emissions across our operations.
Provide services to customers to help them reduce their emissions: We can help customers reduce their carbon footprint. Our products and services can contribute to lower carbon ways of living and working by reducing the need to travel and could facilitate intelligent energy management systems.
Influence others in our industry: We want to use our influence within the industry and beyond to address climate change, working with others through industry partnerships such as the Global eSustainability Initiative Climate Change Working Group. In 2008, we publicly reiterated our support for EU targets to cut carbon emissions as part of the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change.
Our climate change strategy
We have set a target to reduce CO2 emissions from our operations by 50% by 2020 across the Group from the 2006/07 baseline of 1.23 million tonnes. The target covers the operations that contributed to the 2006/07 baseline total (this excludes Turkey and India).
We aim to achieve this by improving energy efficiency across the business and using more green energy where economically viable to purchase, or generate at individual sites. We are focusing our efforts on our networks, which account for more than 80% of the CO2 emissions from our total energy use. Gains in network energy efficiency are being achieved by collaborating with equipment suppliers. See reducing network energy use.
We source around 18% of our total energy use from renewable sources and are continuing to investigate opportunities to introduce green solutions elsewhere, including purchasing green energy where this is a viable option. See renewable energy.
Our Global Energy Management Team oversees the implementation of the strategy across the Group. We launched a major campaign in 2008 to communicate our strategy to employees in all our local operating companies.
Monitoring our energy use
We carry out regular assessments of energy use within our network to monitor our climate impact and identify opportunities to reduce it.
Our Group target to achieve a 50% reduction in CO2 from 2006/07 baseline excludes our new operating companies in Turkey and India, both acquired after the 2006/07 baseline. We acknowledge that emissions from Turkey and India in particular will increase our overall carbon dioxide emissions significantly. We will develop a climate change strategy for these operating companies by 2009.
See our performance in 2007/08.