BTPLC Annual Report 2005 - Our commitment to society
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20.05.
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Our commitment to society
Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
Managing social, ethical and environmental issues in a way that grows shareholder
value and helps BT and our customers to be more sustainable is a key challenge
for us.
The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes rank companies for their success in
managing social, ethical and environmental factors for competitive advantage.
During the 2005 financial year, BT was ranked as the top telecommunications
company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the fourth year in a row.
We also hold the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of our contribution
to sustainable development.
This section of the report, together with the broad statement on social,
environmental and ethical matters included in the section on Corporate
governance, provides information in response to the Association of British Insurers’
disclosure guidelines on social responsibility.
More detailed disclosures on BT’s implementation of social, ethical and
environmental policies and procedures are available online in our independently-
verified social and environmental report, which has been prepared in accordance
with the 2002 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines.
CSR governance
The Board reviews our CSR strategy and performance annually and is kept informed
of our main CSR risks and opportunities as well as new developments that may
impact on its duties.
A Board committee – the Community Support Committee – oversees community,
charitable and arts expenditure and the strategy for maximising our contribution to
society. The committee, chaired by Sir Christopher Bland, consists of representatives
from BT businesses, two non-executive directors and two external independent
members, who have a reputation for excellence in this field.
An executive committee, the Corporate Social Responsibility Steering Group
(CSRSG), oversees the implementation of our CSR strategy and programme. This
includes risk assessment, target and objective setting, ISO 14001 certification – the
international standard for environmental management systems – and public
accountability.
The CSRSG consists of CSR champions nominated by the lines of business and
seven support functions (human resources, corporate governance, health and safety,
group property, communications, internal audit and procurement).
The CSRSG is chaired by BT’s CSR champion, Alison Ritchie, Chief Broadband
Officer and a member of the Operating Committee. It is supported by advice from an
independent panel of CSR experts.
Embedding CSR into BT’s commercial operations is an important part of our CSR
strategy, and a key part of our work in the 2005 financial year has been extending
our CSR activity into our global operations. We have carried out a number of ‘health
checks’ in our commercial operations to identify specific social, economic and
environmental impacts (positive and negative) and particular CSR risks and
opportunities. A report is then compiled which includes recommended actions.
We have important relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, including
employees, customers and suppliers. We engage with these stakeholders in a
number of ways, including consumer liaison panels, an annual employee survey and
a supplier relationship management programme.
Our CSR team co-ordinates and monitors CSR performance, identifies potential
issues and opportunities that might affect the business, and supports BT’s
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issues and opportunities that might affect the business, and supports BT’s
commercial activities.
As part of our CSR performance measurement, we have 12 non-financial KPIs
(key performance indicators) which provide a comprehensive overview of BT’s social
and environmental performance. Our performance against these is published in our
annual Social and Environmental report.

Social, environmental and ethical risks

During the 2005 financial year, we further increased our understanding of our CSR
risks. Privacy has been identified as an additional risk and we have developed a set
of privacy principles for the business and commissioned research on the topic of
privacy in the digital networked economy.
In the context of CSR, our most significant risks are:
supply chain working conditions;
health and safety;
climate change;
diversity;
offshoring or the ‘geography of jobs’;
breach of the code of business ethics; and
privacy.
Each of these risks has a risk owner and mitigation strategy in place (more detail
on these can be found in our online social and environmental report).

CSR business opportunities

There is a direct link between our CSR activity, corporate reputation and customer
satisfaction. A detailed analysis in 2001 of customer opinion data based on tens of
thousands of interviews showed that a 1% improvement in the public’s perception of
our CSR activities resulted in a 0.1% increase in our retail customer satisfaction
figures.
This underlines how important it is not only to protect our reputation through
appropriate risk management activities, but also to enhance it through our
community activities.
Long-term sustainability trends are creating market opportunities for us, such as
the use of teleconferencing and flexible working to reduce the need to travel and
provide more flexible lifestyles.
Increasingly, BT has to address social and environmental matters when bidding
for business. In the 2005 financial year, bids to the value of £2.2 billion required us
to demonstrate expertise in managing these issues.

Environment
During the 2005 financial year, we retained ISO 14001 accreditation for our UK
operations and BT Spain and extended it to BT Ireland.
BT is one of the largest consumers of industrial and commercial electricity in the
UK, and the growth of broadband has, as expected, increased our electricity use. In
the 2005 financial year, our usage increased by 3.1%. However, we also signed the
world’s largest green energy contract which means that almost all of BT’s UK
electricity needs will be met from environmentally-friendly sources, including wind
generation, solar, wave and hydroelectric schemes. In CO2 emissions savings, this
equates to 325,000 tonnes each year, equivalent to that produced by approximately
100,000 cars.

CO2 emissions

2005 2004 2003 2002

Total (UK only; million tonnes) 0.76 0.92 0.96 1.03

% below 1996 53% 42% 40% 36%
Tonnes per £1m turnover 41 50 51 56

During the 2005 financial year, we received an income of £3 million from our
recycling activities, offset against the £7 million we spent managing our waste
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recycling activities, offset against the £7 million we spent managing our waste
contracts, recycling our waste and sending waste to landfill.

Waste

2005 2004 2003 2002

Total waste (tonnes) 110,622 107,303 117,688 114,999

Total waste recycled (tonnes) 37,421 27,626 27,809 24,099
% Recycled 34% 26% 24% 21%

During the 2005 financial year, we reduced our commercial fleet – still one of the
largest in the UK – by 2% and our fuel consumption by 3.5%.

Transport

2005 2004 2003 2002

Number of vehicles
(UK only) 31,969 32,663 33,979 37,509
Fuel consumption
(million litres) 51.97 53.85 56.12 62.76

Digital inclusion
Digital inclusion is a key public policy issue and we are working with the UK
Government and the voluntary sector to find effective ways to use communications
technology to tackle social exclusion. On 12 October 2004, BT was involved, as a
founder member, in the launch of the Alliance for Digital Inclusion.
Our involvement in the EverybodyOnline programme, established in partnership
with charity campaign group Citizens Online, continues to be a key part of our digital
inclusion campaign. The campaign aims to increase skills and access to
communications technology in deprived communities and to increase the
understanding of the causes and effects of the digital divide and how they can be
addressed at a national level.

Community
We commit a minimum of 0.5% of our UK pre-tax profits directly to activities which
support society. This has ranged from £10 million in 1987, peaking at £16 million in
2001 and we provided £9.1 million in the 2005 financial year. BT operations also
provided a further £11.7 million in funding and support in kind over the past
financial year. In the 2005 financial year, BT made charitable donations of £2
million.
The focus of our community programmes is on big issues where better
communication can make a real difference to society. For example, more than
10,500 schools and over two million young people have taken part in the BT
Education Programme – a drama-based campaign helping children to improve their
communication skills. This activity is supported by our volunteering programme
which has several thousand registered volunteers working with schools.
ChildLine, a UK charity, answers 2,300 calls every day but many hundreds more
go unanswered. We are working with ChildLine on a campaign to ensure that every
child’s call for help is answered.
In addition, BT people gave £2 million directly to charities during the 2005
financial year through Give as you Earn, to which BT added a direct contribution of
£1 million.

Tsunami response
BT played a role in the response to the Asian tsunami of 26 December 2004. We set
up a live call centre at the BT Tower to handle the unprecedented number of calls
the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) was experiencing and also ran the online
donation facility. Individual employees and the lines of business were also involved
in fundraising efforts. Sixteen BT engineers travelled to the affected area to help re-

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BTPLC Annual Report 2005 - Our commitment to society 20.05.16 20:49

in fundraising efforts. Sixteen BT engineers travelled to the affected area to help re-
establish the telecommunications infrastructure. We made an immediate £500,000
donation.

Disability services
Our Age and Disability Action team promotes equal access to a wide range of
products and services. We work directly with older and disabled people and their
representatives to raise awareness of BT’s inclusive approach and are continuing to
develop our processes to ensure that new products and services are accessible to
disabled people.
For people with hearing or speech impairments, for example, our textphone
offers easy access to BT TextDirect – the service that enables users to dial direct to
other text or voice users. Customers with visual or mobility impairments benefit
from products with large, clear keypads and cordless or hands-free options. During
the 2005 financial year, we also launched Relate 3000, an inclusively designed
phone and our new BT Text service, which includes a speaking SMS facility.

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