Technology must accelerate our journey to net zero emissions and a circular world

BT Group has been a leader on climate action for over 30 years. We’ve been tracking our carbon reductions since 1992, and we went on to become one of the first companies in the world to set a science-based target in 2008.  Our networks and buildings are all powered by electricity certified as renewable1, and we're working hard and investing to convert the majority of our commercial vehicle fleet to electric or zero emission vehicles by the end of March 2031.

The transition to a net zero economy needs to happen much faster. We’re investing in full fibre broadband and 5G networks that will pave the way for lower-carbon ways of life and work. Our networks and solutions can help all our customers cut carbon too. Tech has enormous potential to make cities and factories smarter and manage homes more efficiently.

Net zero

We’ve pledged to become a net zero business by the end of March 2031 and we’re targeting net zero for our supply chain and customer emissions by the end of March 2041.

Circular economy

We’ve set a bold ambition to go circular in our own business and beyond. We aim to contribute to a circular economy by reducing waste and enhancing opportunities to repair, refurbish and recycle2. We’re also taking steps to protect nature and biodiversity.

60 million tonnes

We’ve set a target to help customers avoid 60 million tonnes of CO2e by the end of March 2030.

199.9% of the global electricity that BT Group purchases is certified as renewable. The remaining 0.1% is where renewable electricity is not available for purchase in the market.
2We are building towards being a fully circular business by end of March 2030, and a circular tech ecosystem by end of March 2040.

Accelerating progress towards net zero

Watch this film to discover how BT Group is leading the way on climate action.

On our way to net zero

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cut in carbon emissions intensity since FY17 (towards our 87% target by the end of March 2031)3

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tonnes of CO2e avoided for our customers (since 2021)

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cut in supply chain emissions since FY17 (towards our 42% target by the end of March 2031)

We’ll achieve our ambitious net zero targets by:

Decarbonising our networks, buildings and fleet

Becoming a circular business

Cutting carbon emissions across our value chain

Helping suppliers and customers cut carbon emissions

Decarbonising our buildings and networks

  • All of the electricity we purchase to power our buildings estate, shops and networks worldwide is certified as renewable4 through our procurement of energy from sources that include power purchase agreements (PPAs) and green tariffs supported by renewable energy certificates (RECs). Long term renewable PPAs met 24% of our UK electricity demand this year, supporting additional renewable electricity infrastructure across the UK grid. Where we don’t control the supply of electricity or where we can’t guarantee the origin of the electricity, we purchase additional RECs to cover the proportion of our consumption (for example, at landlord controlled sites).
  • We’re decarbonising our estate through our workplace transformation programme and consolidating hundreds of buildings to around 30. Our new and refurbished buildings are designed with environmental impact firmly in mind
Openreach engineer works on the new full fibre network at an exchange

We’re building more energy-efficient fixed and 4G/5G networks, while switching off our old legacy ones. As well as saving energy, full fibre networks are better at handling the effects of physical risks like flooding and higher temperatures. That means fewer faults or engineering visits.

3 Scope 1 and 2 worldwide emissions tonnes CO2e per £m value added. To be achieved by end of March 2031.
4 99.9% of the global electricity BT Group consumes is from renewable sources. The remaining 0.1% is where renewable electricity is not available in the market.

Electric Openreach van
Electric Openreach van

Switching our vehicle fleet to electric

  • Nearly 80% of our operational emissions (Scope 1 and 2) come from our commercial fleet of over 33,000 vehicles.
  • We’re working hard and investing to convert the majority of this fleet to electric or zero emission vehicles by the end of March 2031.
  • In total, we have over 4,100 electric vehicles (EVs) in our fleet, including more than 1,700 added this year.
  • We’re still pushing for policy measures to support a wider UK EV transition as a member of the UK Electric Fleets Coalition, who this year published a new document to encourage more policy momentum on EVs.

Our start-up and digital incubation arm, Etc., has developed an EV charging unit built from a street cabinet (traditionally used to store broadband and phone cabling). We’re exploring the potential to run up to 60,000 cabinets into EV charging points. This would increase the availability of charging infrastructure on the UK’s roads and support Government sustainability targets and plans to decarbonise the UK transport system.

This year, we introduced a salary-sacrifice scheme for UK colleagues to buy EVs through personal lease arrangements. For colleagues in India, we’re introducing EVs as part of our transport and shuttle passenger services. Today there are 94 EVs in use and we’ll keep growing that number.

Becoming a circular business,
while protecting nature and biodiversity

Developing a circular economy is a vital step in achieving a net zero economy

We want to become a circular business by 2030 – and build towards a circular tech ecosystem by 2040. For our operational waste, we are aiming for zero waste to landfill by 2030, by increasing the amount we reuse and recycle.

Recycling products and packaging

We encourage consumers to return products after use. This year, our customers returned more than 2.4 million home hubs and set-top boxes to us, 71% were reused, with the remainder being responsibly recycled. We also collected over 166,000 mobile devices through consumer and business trade-in schemes, we reused over 96% and recycled the rest.

To extend the lives of our customers’ devices, our EE repair service (approved by Apple, Samsung and Google) fixed 58,000 devices this year (up 94% from FY23).

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home hubs and set-top boxes returned                  

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mobile devices through consumer and business trade-in schemes

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UK recycling, reuse and recovery rate (65% globally)

Protecting nature and biodiversity

Biodiversity

We continued working to understand our impacts on nature and biodiversity, in line with the draft Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework. This year, we ran an impact assessment of our operations and procurement.

As part of our focus on conservation, BT Group has partnered with The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. We provide financial contributions to the charity and volunteering opportunities for colleagues.

Openreach has created a Business Conservation Partnership with the RSPB, to make sure that, moving forward, they are better placed to implement nature-positive actions as part of the overall fibre build programme.

Openreach has also worked closely with NatureScot and National Trust for Scotland in providing fibre to Fair Isle (between Orkney and Shetland). They scheduled their builds to make sure that nesting birds were undisturbed during the breeding season, and worked together to protect native plant species.

Water consumption

Our UK water use fell by 12% this year to 1,349,324m4, mainly from operating adiabatic cooling units more efficiently within network equipment operating limits, and the pinpointing and fixing of leaks in our water supply.

Cutting carbon emissions across
our value chain by helping suppliers cut carbon

We’ve cut our supply chain emissions by 25% since FY17. This is a 5% decrease on last year. Our target is a 42% reduction by the end of March 2031.

We continue to work with suppliers to cut carbon:

  • We’ve hardwired carbon reduction into supplier contracts, and require suppliers with new contracts over £25 million to sign up to the science-based net zero targets. For example, we’ve seen savings from Circet that reduced over 100t CO2e in 2023 under its contract with BT Group and Openreach.
  • We encourage our key suppliers to report to CDP to improve visibility and action on emissions. Today more than 300 of them are doing so.
  • We continued our collaboration with the 1.5°C Supply Chain Leaders initiative to drive climate action across global supply chains, and support small and medium-sized enterprises through the SME Climate Hub.

Helping customers cut carbon

There's huge potential to use our networks, products and services to help customers cut their own emissions – for example through decarbonising the grid and improving our products’ energy efficiency. We’ve set a target to help customers avoid 60 million tonnes of carbon by 2030.

We’ve helped customers avoid over 1.5 million tonnes of carbon (nearly 3.8 million tonnes in total since 2021), mainly through full fibre broadband reducing personal or work-related travel.

We’ve expanded our Digital Carbon Calculator to include compute and end point devices. The calculator helps our larger customers measure, track and cut carbon footprints across their networks. Today, it shows customers are cutting their CO2e by 15% on average when transforming their networks with us.

We’ve enhanced our Carbon Network Dashboard to include an energy optimisation recommendation feature, which helps our larger customers use their networks more efficiently. It enables them to measure, monitor and reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Colleagues in a cloud server

Carbon Abatement Methodology

We have developed a new abatement methodology to explain our approach.

Our carbon abatement methodology

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