Sustainability ambitions
Sustainability and circularity are playing an increasingly significant role in our entire organisation. There is a growing awareness among our employees of the importance of both, which is being translated into robust ambitions and measurable results. We are constantly looking for opportunities to work more efficiently, consume less energy and use fewer raw materials. Here, you can read about the steps we took in 2022 and how they contribute towards our ambitions.
SUSTAINABLE GOALS
Our overarching goal for 2025 is to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% compared to our emissions in 2018. In addition, our aim is to significantly increase the energy efficiency of the organisation between 2021 and 2024. We achieve this by earmarking various energy initiatives within the organisation. An example of such an initiative is the continuous decommissioning of legacy mobile equipment in our network.
Many factors influence our CO2 footprint, such as our network, how we use vehicles and, most importantly, how we design our products. We believe we can be more efficient in improving our environmental impact if we collaborate across departments. Every business department at VodafoneZiggo has ambassadors of our People Planet Progress strategy who drive change inside their teams – enabling us to make lasting sustainable changes in how we operate.
Substantial reduction in CO2 emissions
Our CO2-reduction goals for 2025 have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This means they are in line with the reduction necessary to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C – the most ambitious objective of the Paris Agreement[1].
At VodafoneZiggo, we aim to transform our value chain operation to be fully CO2-neutral[2]. We are taking all the steps we can at this point to accelerate the initiatives that have a significant impact on our CO2 reduction efforts. Our goal is to reduce our emissions yearly until the official SBTi target year of 2050 and beyond.
We offset Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions that we genuinely cannot prevent by supporting Gold Standard-certified climate projects. This is the highest standard applicable to CO2 reduction projects. In 2022, for example, we offset our direct CO2 footprint amounting to 9 kTon of CO2 by investing in a wind farm in Turkey. Every year, we carefully select a project that resonates with our core values and where we believe we can make the most impact.
SUSTAINABLE FINANCING
After issuing green bonds in 2020, we introduced ‘Sustainability Linked Bonds’ in 2022, which directly links our financing strategy to our environmental performance goals. It incentivises reaching our goals because doing so will unlock lower repayment costs, while failure to do so will result in an interest penalty. We will reinvest any savings into environmentally friendly and sustainable projects within VodafoneZiggo.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
Like our parent companies, Vodafone Group and Liberty Global, we are committed to the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), in which an independent party assesses our sustainable goals against the Paris Agreement. We also comply with important international rules such as the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the international standard for environmental management systems (ISO 14001). And we have build our energy management system in accordance with the international standard for energy management systems (ISO 50001).
OUR AMBITIONS AND OBJECTIVES
We are limiting our CO2 emissions. Our overarching strategy is to reduce our CO2 emissions within the entire chain (Scope 1, 2 and 3) by 50% in 2025 compared to 2018.
We aim to save at least 287 TJ of energy between 2021 and 2024.
Since 2013, we have purchased 100% green electricity with Guarantees of Origin (GvO) from European wind energy. By purchasing GVOs we ensure the renewable energy was generated within the European economic zone.
For Scope 1 and 2, we offset the CO2 emissions that we cannot prevent. We do that by supporting Gold Standard-certified climate projects, the most stringent standard that applies to CO2 reduction projects.
We are reducing our energy consumption in our offices and shops as much as possible. One of the ways we are achieving this is by operating fewer office sites and fewer shops and by making flexible working highly accessible. We also print as little as possible, have installed LED lighting and monitor our consumption using smart meters.
We are innovating our network with low-energy and efficient solutions. Examples of this include using equipment that consumes less energy, utilising smart solutions to cool our data centres, phasing out old equipment and network technology and creating synergies between our fixed and mobile networks.
We are also making our new media boxes smaller and more energy-efficient by deploying the latest technologies. Customers can adjust the energy level themselves.
We are encouraging sustainable mobility among our employees by making it possible for everyone to travel by public transport free of charge for business and private purposes.
We are greening our vehicle fleet. By introducing more electric leased cars, electric vans, electric scooters and bikes for technicians.
In our logistics processes, we use as many biodegradable materials as possible.
We recycle our customers’ old or broken equipment or encourage customers to hand it in at a Wecycle recycling point.
We are constantly reducing the number of packaging materials we use by packaging our products in a smarter way with less empty space. This reduces the amount of material required and reduces empty space and empty runs during transportation.
We also offer services such as the Vodafone Trade-in deals and the Smartphone Scan so that consumers can make conscious choices to extend the service life of their phones and get the most out of them: recycle, reuse, repair and reduce.
- 1The Paris agreement’s aim is to keep global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
- 2According to the SBTi standards for the ICT sector, ‘net zero’ means that by 2050, at least 95% of the scope-1 and scope-2 emissions and 90% of the scope-3 emissions will be reduced to zero and any residual emissions will be offset.
