BT 2011 Annual Report Download - page 39

BUSINESS REVIEW
36
OUR CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
•Introduction
•Building stronger communities
•Reducing carbon emissions and our impact
on the environment
•Behaving responsibly
•Our corporate responsibility risks
•Further information
Taking corporate responsibility and
sustainability seriously has been important to
BT for many years. To better reflect this, we
updated our business strategy this year, so
that being a ‘responsible and sustainable
business leader’ became one of our strategic
priorities. This will help us to further integrate
sustainability into our daily decision-making.
Our approach to developing and delivering
our corporate responsibility
Introduction
We have a long track record of acting responsibly and supporting
the communities to whom we deliver services. Our support for
Children in Need telethons dates back to 1980, and that for Comic
Relief to 1988. Our environmental management system dates back
to 1991. We have long-standing ethical supply chain management
processes and policies on equal opportunities, fair pay and
anti-bullying.
One way in which businesses strive to do better in terms of acting
responsibly is to compete with others for awards. We enter these to
help benchmark ourselves against the efforts of other like-minded
organisations. In 2011 we were proud that we maintained gold
sector status in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and ‘Platinum
Plus’ level in the Business in the Community Corporate
Responsibility Index, as well as attaining a place in the FTSE4Good
Index. We were in joint first place in the Carbon Disclosure Project’s
Leadership Index, won the World Communication Award ‘Green
Award’ and won the Edie Award for Environmental Excellence in the
‘Sustainable Transport’ category.
We are focused on a number of strategic priorities and in 2011 we
added a new strategic priority – ‘to be a responsible and sustainable
business leader’ – to leave no doubt about the importance we place
on acting ethically and in the interests of the environment. This
reflects an ongoing commitment to integrate the principles of
sustainability into the way we do business.
We measure progress towards our corporate responsibility (CR)
goals in accordance with the principles of the Connected Reporting
Framework sponsored by HRH the Prince of Wales. Our
sustainability report provides full details of our progress and can be
found online at www.bt.com/betterfuture
We are focusing our activity on three areas to deliver our new
strategic priority:
•building stronger communities through the power of our
technology and people
•reducing carbon emissions and our impact on the environment
through our operations and products
•behaving responsibly towards our customers, people and
suppliers.
The importance of CR is emphasised by the existence of a Board
Committee dedicated to CR and chaired by the BT plc Group
Chairman. We also receive advice from an external leadership panel
of independent experts. See Report of the directors – Report of
the Committee for Sustainable & Responsible Business on page 68
for more information.
Building stronger communities
We are using our technology and the skills and creativity of our
people to make a positive difference to the communities in which
we work.
Digital inclusion
The economic benefit of getting everyone online in the UK is
estimated at £22 billion (the Economic Case for Digital Inclusion –
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, October 2009). We help communities
enjoy the benefits of technology through our commitment to
improve digital inclusion. We aim to get at least 100,000 digitally
excluded people online as part of our support for the UK’s Race
Online 2012. We have underpinned this with our large investment in
the UK’s digital infrastructure and programmes like our ‘Race to
Infinity’ – an online vote which resulted in winning communities
being prioritised as part of our fibre roll-out programme.
INFLUENCES
Stakeholders
Leadership panel
Building stronger
communities
Reducing carbon
emissions and our impact
on the environment
Behaving responsibly
CR STRATEGY
BT Group plc Board
Board committee for
sustainable and
responsible business
Leadership teams and
steering groups
GOVERNANCEREPORTING
Performance indicators
Transparent reporting
Business units
Group corporate
responsibility team
DELIVERY
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