Climate consciousness in everyday decisions
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In Norway climate change is already making its presence known by warmer temperatures, more frequent flood rains, and melting glaciers, among others. As the leader of one of Norway’s largest companies, Telenor Norway, CEO Petter-Børre Furberg is actively involved in the company’s climate change agenda and actions.
Let’s see what Petter-Børre Furberg had to say when Cecilie Heuch, Chief People and Sustainability Officer in Telenor Group, asked about Telenor Norway’s plans to reduce their emissions.
Cecilie: What is Telenor Norway doing to reach Telenor’s 2030 climate ambitions?
Petter-Børre: Telenor’s ambition for the Nordics is carbon-neutral business operations by 2030. In Telenor Norway we have prioritized to focus our efforts in three main areas.
Firstly, we focus on reducing our own emissions. We do this mostly by reducing energy use and securing production of renewable energy. Being climate conscious in our everyday decisions as a part of Telenor Norway is important to succeed with this.
Secondly, we target our indirect emissions through influencing our suppliers and partners to reduce their emissions. 84% of our emissions are related to goods and services we purchase. We have committed to and gotten our targets validated/approved by the Science Based Target initiative, which means it is our intention to over time procure our goods and services mainly by suppliers who have similar commitments. We have started to reach out to relevant suppliers and partners to share our knowledge and experience, and communicated our expectations on this. Over time we will increase our requirements through our procurement so that this weighs in more and more and this becomes a decisive factor for the suppliers we ultimately engage with. Telenor has the largest investments in infrastructure in all of Norway and as such we have tremendous clout when it comes to using our procurement “muscles” strategically. We therefore can and should be very conscious of how we procure our goods and services to ensure we invest in a greener future.
Thirdly, we can enable further emission reductions through innovative green technology. According to World Economic Forum “Digital technology can cut global emissions by 15%”. The services we provide are key to this green transformation and we work closely with both private and public sector today. Together we can make use of the opportunities AI, IoT and 5G provide for innovation and optimalisation in our use of resources, and a significant reduction in both local and global emissions.
Telenor’s climate targets towards 2030
Cecilie: What is the opinion of climate change by customers in Norway and how is Telenor Norway responding to these opinions and expectations?
Petter-Børre: Our customers, both private customers and businesses, and my over 3000 colleagues in Telenor Norway (including myself) demand that Telenor is a responsible business and takes climate change seriously. It is important that we are transparent and disclose our emissions. We also need to take appropriate action and improve our business so that we do our part in meeting the targets under the Paris agreement. More information on our targets and efforts to mitigate climate change can be found here: https://www.telenor.no/om/samfunnsansvar/artikler/klima-miljo/
Telenor’s first Digital Outlook: How digitalisation will advance greener solutions towards 2030
Cecilie: What do you believe is needed from the telecom industry in general to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030?
Petter-Børre: Collaboration. I think collaboration is key to finding solutions where we as a sector can achieve real impact. And Telcos are great at collaborating. Through GSMA we have developed standardization that makes our technology accessible and scalable all over the world. We have to do the same to reduce climate gas emissions. I am glad to see that many great telco-companies have signed the Science Based Targets initiative. This is a standardized way to set targets and implement concrete actions on reducing CO2-emissions, as well as a trusted way to report on both targets and actual results. We already have useful forums for collaboration, and I think we all have acknowledged that in combating the devastating consequences of climate change there cannot be one winner, but we can all end up as losers if we don’t join forces and work on this issue together.