In July members of the joint alliance for CSR, a telecoms industry body made up of 26 leading companies, spoke on the importance of bringing down value chain emissions and issued a call to action to companies and suppliers
At two webinars hosted by sustainable supply chain specialist consultancy epi, representatives from companies including Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, BT Group, MTN, Vodafone, Orange, Swisscom, Telstra and AT&T, roundly agreed that companies needed to bring down emissions across their entire value chain, known as Scope 3.
Citing the record-breaking temperatures experienced in June, Maya Ormazabal Herrero, director of environment and human rights at Telefónica, said that the sector ‘had to support the transition’, and the participation of suppliers was essential if the telecoms industry was to achieve its sustainability ambitions.
The two webinars, which brought together JAC members and suppliers from across the globe, sought to address concerns and opportunities in the industry and set out practical guidance to improve engagement between global organisations and suppliers for the purposes of reducing their carbon footprint.
Gabrielle Ginér, head of environmental sustainability at BT Group, said that ‘working with supply chains’ was a priority for JAC.
"We are reaching out to our suppliers today and as highlighted in the JAC Climate Change report, asking for immediate action on climate and carbon reduction," she said.
"Some of the things JAC members are doing working with suppliers include supplier engagement programmes, increasing sustainability criteria on supplier scorecards and adjudication, and developing and embedding sustainability contract clauses."
Echoeing Ginér’s comment, Telstra’s senior supplier governance manager, Simon Anthony said, "This year we’ve been working with our people to help them make more informed purchasing decisions by introducing environmental considerations in our source-to-contract process. Furthermore, we’ve also commenced the rollout of our climate change contract terms.
MTN’s group chief technical officer, Amith Maharaj, said that MTN would ‘reward suppliers who have committed to the net zero campaign and demonstrated credible plans to get there.’
Data from the Net Zero Tracker initiative show that nearly seven years on from the Paris agreement, just 57% of the world’s largest 2,000 companies by revenue have made a commitment to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.
