BT 2010 Annual Report Download - page 36

34 BT GROUP PLC ANNUAL REPORT & FORM 20-F
REVIEW OF THE YEAR
We have a long track record of acting responsibly. We have
established policies on equal opportunities, fair pay and anti-
bullying. Our environmental management system dates back to
1991, and during 2010 we celebrated the tenth anniversary of our
ISO14001 certification. We have been providing solutions for our
older and less able customers since 1984.
Our statement of business practice,
The Way We Work , provides
the principles to which all our people are expected to comply, and is
championed by senior executives throughout BT.
We want to make a difference to some of the global challenges
society faces, and are focusing our activities on three key areas:
climate change; developing sustainable customer solutions; and
enabling skills for an inclusive society.
This year we invested money, time and in-kind contributions
worth £26.4m supporting responsible and sustainable business
activities, meeting our commitment to invest at least 1% of group
pre-tax profits.
Our target for 2011 is to maintain a minimum investment of 1%
of underlying pre-tax profits in our community.
20.5
21.5
22.5
23.5
24.5
25.5
26.5
Community investment
(£m)
1.05%
1.01%
1.02%
2009 20102008
Investment
(time, cash
and in-kind)
Percentage
of pre-tax
profit
OUR CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Our corporate responsibility
Helping tackle climate change
Developing sustainable customer
solutions
Enabling skills for an inclusive society
Charity support
Our corporate responsibility risks
Recognition of our contribution
Further information
We meet the guidelines of the Association of British Insurers in
reporting on social performance and have also applied the Prince of
Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability reporting framework.
Helping tackle climate change
We can play a significant role helping our customers in the move to
a low carbon economy, and can already see the start of this
transition with growing customer demand for lower carbon
products and services – reducing costs, improving energy efficiency
and boosting productivity.
At the same time, we need to continue to minimise our own
carbon footprint, and have set ourselves one of the most aggressive
corporate emissions reduction targets in the world to help
transform BT into a less carbon-intensive business. By 2020 we aim
to have reduced the carbon intensity of our global business by 80%
compared with our 1997 base year.
BT Operate is responsible for BT’s energy policy, including
reducing carbon emissions (see Our lines of business – BT Operate
on page 33).
Developing sustainable customer
solutions
Our work in this area has two elements: embedding sustainability,
and supporting the low carbon economy. Our sustainability
framework is now part of BT’s portfolio development process,
comprising environmental, economic and societal criteria. Our
series of detailed standards help our product teams source products
with a lower environmental impact, and we are working with
industry bodies to raise standards across the global IT supply chain.
Our centre of excellence for inclusive design helps BT product
designers embed inclusive design principles from the beginning of
the development process, and incorporate accessibility features
across our consumer product range.
We broadened our ethical key performance indicator this year to
help measure the impact of our ethics training and other activities
designed to raise employee awareness of our policies on issues such
as bribery and corruption, and receiving or offering hospitality. Our
result for the first year was 3.58 out of five.
We have been working to develop our market propositions
supporting the low carbon economy. The table below shows the
value of customer contract bids which include a sustainability
element.
Financial performance
2010 2009a2008a
Customer bids with a
sustainability element £2.1bn £1.5bn £2.6bn
aWe have improved the way we collect this data during the year and have restated 2009 and
2008 figures.
Enabling skills for an inclusive society
We want everyone to share the benefits of communications
technology. Our inclusive society programme promotes inclusion by
making our products readily available, affordable and easy to use;
increasing communication and IT skills through community
investment programmes; and creating an inclusive culture across BT.