BT 2007 Annual Report Download - page 26

ethical and environmental issues for competitive advantage.) We
also hold the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of our
contribution to sustainable development, and in the 2006/07
Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility,
Environment and Community indexes, BT is one of only four
companies out of 100 to score over 95% on all six dimensions.
We were also named for the first time as the leading corporate
organisation for sustainability reporting in a survey published by
SustainAbility, in association with UNEP (United Nations
Environment Programme) and Standard & Poor’s.
CSR Strategy
During the 2007 financial year, the implementation of our
revised CSR strategy, which was discussed and agreed by the
Board, was a top priority. There are four key strands to this
strategy: maintaining current momentum, tackling climate
change, enabling sustainable economic growth and enabling a
more inclusive society – all issues to which we believe we can
make a positive contribution.
Maintaining current momentum
CSR touches every part of our business – from the way we
interact with our customers, suppliers and partners, look after
our people, give back to communities and support charities such
as ChildLine and UNICEF, right through to our practical concern
for the environment.
We commit a minimum of 1% of our UK pre-tax profits to
activities which support society. We provided a total of
£22 million designed to benefit society in the 2007 financial
year, of which £3 million was charitable donations. Our key
performance indicator for a number of years has been based on
our contribution. In the 2007 financial year, we added a new
indicator to measure the effectiveness of our investment.
Our community investment strategy aims to help individuals
and communities make a better world through improved
communications skills and technology. A key strand of this is our
Better World campaign which has brought together our
education programme (which provides free resources for
teachers, pupils and parents and in-school activities with drama
groups and BT volunteers, both in the UK and internationally)
and other activities for young people. To date, we have involved
over three million pupils at more than 12,000 schools.
ChildLine, a UK charity, receives 4,500 calls every day but
lack of funds means that many hundreds go unanswered. We are
working with ChildLine on a campaign to ensure that every
child’s call for help is answered. In the 2007 financial year, we
raised £2 million for ChildLine and also raised money for
There4Me, an online counselling service for children run by the
NSPCC. We also helped Comic Relief, Sport Relief and Children in
Need run successful telethons which raised over £80 million for
good causes around the globe.
In the 2007 financial year, as part of our Better World
campaign, we launched our first global development partnership
with UNICEF. Community projects to bring education, ICT
(information and communications technology) and
communications skills to disadvantaged children will initially
focus on South Africa, to be followed by Brazil and China in
subsequent years. BT is investing £1.5 million over three years
and this will be enhanced by fundraising activities by our
employees around the world.
We recognise that we have a responsibility to the environment
and we continue actively to manage our waste reduction and
recycling. During the 2007 financial year, we received an income
of £4.5 million from our recycling activities, offset against the
£5.2 million we spent managing our waste contracts, recycling
our waste and sending waste to landfill.
Waste
2004 2005 2006 2007
Total waste (tonnes) 107,303 110,622 102,005 94,928
Total waste recycled (tonnes) 27,626 37,421 42,340 40,007
% recycled 26% 34% 42% 42%
Tackling climate change
BT is currently responsible for over 0.7% of the UK’s total
electricity consumption so we are well placed to make a
significant contribution by actively reducing our carbon
emissions. In fact, we have been actively managing our UK CO
2
emissions for a number of years – they are currently 60% below
their 1996 levels. However, given the scale of the climate
change challenge we face, we have committed to achieving an
80% reduction in CO
2
emissions from our 1996 baseline by
2016.
As we transform our business and increasingly provide
innovative new wave services, our energy consumption could
increase as a result, for example, of the growth in our data
centres. Consequently, we have conducted an audit of the
energy consumption of these data centres and are implementing
BT Group plc Annual Report & Form 20-F 25
CSR – Global partnerships
A student from the Mantshinga Combined School,
South Africa
Brian Armstrong, General Manager, Middle East and Africa,
with students from the Mantshinga Combined School, South Africa
Working together
Report of the Directors Business