ESG Measurement Matters: Driving Sustainability Outcomes with BT Group

ESG Measurement Matters: Driving Sustainability Outcomes with BT Group

Sally Eaves 22/02/2023
ESG Measurement Matters: Driving Sustainability Outcomes with BT Group

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns are becoming increasingly important to investors, customers, and other stakeholders.

As a result, companies are under growing pressure to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and social responsibility. In this context, ESG measurement is becoming a critical tool for companies to assess and improve their sustainability performance. In this article, we will explore how BT Group, a UK-based multinational telecommunications company, is using ESG measurement to drive sustainability outcomes.

Role of ICT and the Telecoms Industry

Role_of_ICT_and_the_Telecoms_Industry.png

This goes beyond reducing carbon footprint, energy consumption and indeed related costs within the industry and specific companies, to the ‘positive contagion effect’ (Eaves 2023) enabling sustainability benefits across other verticals where telcos can have a greater opportunity to make an impact that both scales and lasts. It is perhaps no surprise then to learn that according to TXO, 90% of operators believe that the circular economy is important to their organisation.

And accompanying this, we are already seeing legislation designed to improve the carbon footprint of the ICT industry placing greater requirements on CSP’s to publish key indicators on policies for reducing their overall environmental footprint. As one such example, French telecom operators have been mandated to indicate the carbon footprint of their subscribers on every invoice issued. But as highlighted in this piece, more action is needed – lets explore some new innovation in this area, aiming to deliver on exactly this.

ESG – Sustainability Measurement Advances with BT Group

ESG__Sustainability_Measurement_Advances_with_BT_Group.jpg

 

Following on from my recent discussions with Sarwar Khan, it comes as no surprise that BT Group has been recognised as a 2022 CDP ‘A Lister’ on climate action – out of some 15k submissions BT Group was one of only 283 companies to achieve this top rating with more information on this evaluation available here. So let’s now drill into ‘the how’ of fostering and scaling such impact.

Clearly enabling effective and trustworthy measurement of social impact will be increasingly critical in demonstrating or ‘proving’ a company's efforts, and should be comprehensive, transparent, authentic, and truthful.

In this regard, it has been excellent to learn more about BT Group’s latest efforts toward its goal to help customers avoid 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by the end of 2030. This builds on a legacy of commitment in this area, embodied in the BT Group Manifesto strategy which focuses on accelerating growth via responsible, inclusive and sustainable technology and is available to review here.

And just before diving into these latest announcements, another example of this impact comes from BT Sport - the first broadcaster to produce a UEFA football match, namely between Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and Sporting Club, completely in the cloud in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This effected a carbon emission reduction of some 25% and paves the trajectory ahead for more energy efficient, cost-effective and flexible transmissions. Connected and collaborative action - brilliant!

Carbon Network Dashboard Launch

We have seen how today’s CSOs are now typically held back by data incompatibilities – so whilst 89% may be using KPI metrics to track progress, the top three challenges to meeting net-zero are all data-led. This brings to the fore the importance of active intelligence, with data securely available to the right person or indeed machine, at the right time – in this context, to provide holistic, integrated and real time visibility of energy consumption. The end result? – Active intelligence (Qlik) or in other words, decision-useful information!

The Carbon Network Dashboard can be applied across distributed or hybrid environments and provides actual power consumption data for networking devices by using telemetry to poll them frequently, which is then overlaid with third-party grid carbon intensity data. Available to BT Group customers only at this time, the dashboard also provides recommendations for network optimization based on machine learning and historic data whilst also helping to forecast power consumption, view trends and identify devices for refresh, delivering both energy and carbon savings. Planned evolution here includes extending recommendation capacity to match network operations to available renewable grid energy.

Digital Carbon Calculator Launch

Encapsulating the ethos of BT Group’s aim to become the world’s most trusted connector of people, devices and machines by 2030, is the launch of the Digital Carbon Calculator. This provides estimated carbon emissions for networking devices based on a lifecycle assessment, enabling a clear and quick way to obtain a total estimated carbon footprint for their inventory in tonnes of CO2 alongside showcasing ‘carbon hot spots’ - as well as predict total energy consumption based on both network inventory and historical usage.

To ensure data collection and measurement accuracy BT Group uses the corporate standard greenhouse gas protocol as its primary framework for data collection and translation into carbon emissions. Supporting this further, the Digital Carbon Calculator is accessible to all, capable of being used by existing and non- BT Group customers alike and with clear support processes for device discovery/mapping and device inventory upload/mapping respectively. Additionally, the calculator is powered by vendor-supplied device data in accordance with ISO14064 - the International Standard for GHG Emissions Inventories and Verification.

Digital_Carbon_Calculator_Launch.png

Final Thoughts

Organizations cannot manage ESG considerations without a reliable, holistic, consistent and comparable way of measuring it - with developments to secure a robust and globally comparable approach to reduce, measure, verify and report ESG outcomes both a business and societal imperative - and an enriching opportunity to change! BT Group’s release of two tools, the Carbon Network Dashboard and Digital Carbon Calculator, heralds an important step forward within this - directly and accessibly supporting the track, trace and optimisation of the energy use and carbon emissions from multi-cloud networks. And finally, I believe it is imperative to restate that this is a group effort!

We are all stakeholders in enabling ESG impact that scales – effective change necessitates collective action from businesses, governments, individuals and civil society – it takes us all.

Appendix

Telecoms Reference Note on Scope Emissions

Scope 1 and 2 emissions are direct and indirect emissions respectively, generated by fuel usage or the electricity companies purchase to run their networks. Scope 3 accounts for 80% of telecoms emissions and refers to the entire value chain – from equipment produced by the telcos' suppliers, to emissions generated by products and services supplied to end-users.

There are 15 categories incorporated within scope 3 emissions, including ‘purchased goods and services', ‘upstream transportation and distribution’ and ‘waste generated in operations’.

About the Author

Prof. Sally Eaves is a highly experienced chief technology officer, professor in advanced technologies, and a Global Strategic Advisor on digital transformation specializing in the application of emergent technologies, notably AI, 5G, Cloud, Cyber Security, and IoT disciplines, for business and IT transformation, alongside social impact at scale, especially from sustainability and DEI perspectives.

An international keynote speaker and author, Sally was an inaugural recipient of the Frontier Technology and Social Impact award, presented at the United Nations, and has been described as the "torchbearer for ethical tech", founding Aspirational Futures to enhance inclusion, diversity, equity and belonging in the technology space and beyond. Sally is also the chair for the Global Cyber Trust at GFCYBER. 

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Sally Eaves

Tech Expert

Dr. Sally Eaves is a highly experienced Chief Technology Officer, Professor in Advanced Technologies and a Global Strategic Advisor on Digital Transformation specialising in the application of emergent technologies, notably AI, FinTech, Blockchain & 5G disciplines, for business transformation and social impact at scale. An international Keynote Speaker and Author, Sally was an inaugural recipient of the Frontier Technology and Social Impact award, presented at the United Nations in 2018 and has been described as the ‘torchbearer for ethical tech’ founding Aspirational Futures to enhance inclusion, diversity and belonging in the technology space and beyond.

   
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