Vodafone’s commitment to the environment

We believe that urgent and sustained action is required to address the climate emergency and that business success should not come at a cost to the environment.

We have committed to halving our environmental impact by 2025. Our focus on energy efficiency, renewable energy supply and eliminating network waste is helping us to mitigate the environmental impact of the growth of our business and our customers’ increasing demand for data. In addition, one of our most important contributions is to enable our customers to achieve a reduction in their greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions through the technologies and services we provide.

The end of 2020 brought exciting news from Vodafone; that we will be net zero by 2040! Considering the size and spread of our operations, this is indeed an ambitious target but one that must be achieved in order to contribute to the global effort to save our planet from catastrophic and irreparable damage.
We have set a science based target and will follow the ICT¹ sector-specific pathway that has been developed with GSMA and Carbon Trust (external carbon consultants) to align with the more ambitious target of limiting global warming to 1.5° above pre-industrial levels.

More information about Vodafone’s environmental agenda is available here.

We want our partners to join us on the Journey to Net Zero!!!

Our focus on climate doesn’t begin and end with our own operations. As you can see in the chart on the left below, our scope 1 and 2 accounts for only 13% of our total carbon footprint!!! We are also committed to tackle the remaining 87% that falls outside of our direct control.

The resulting expectation is for Supply Chain to reduce the carbon emissions of Purchased Goods and Services by 50% by 2030 against the 2019/20 baseline data which is close to 2 million tons (the green piece of the pie on the left). We can only do this by collaborating with you, our partners who can create innovative technologies and inspire the people in our supply chain to do the same. Together we can tackle the climate emergency. #TogetherWeCan.

We recognise that this is a tough journey. Many of our partners have already joined us on this journey, by implementing green energy programmes, making great progress against aggressive CO2 targets and providing us with innovative low CO2 products. We want to hear about your experiences, learn from you and work together more moving forward.

To others, particularly our SME partners the challenge can seem daunting and insurmountable. We are willing to support you in this journey, share experiences, and provide links to relevant resources. We wish to identify partners who are willing to make commitments to create a better future, who share our values and ambitions; we will identify areas and ways for you to drive positive change.

We want our partners to commit to join us on our Carbon Reduction Journey

The boxes below show the initial steps that we want our partners to take in order to align with our environmental agenda and in particular our Carbon Reduction Targets.

We want our partners to set a 1.5° Science Based Target.

SBTs are the recommended and credible way for organisations to set carbon reduction targets because they are aligned to climate science. Many major organisations, including our peers AT&T, BT, DT, Telefonica and suppliers Ericsson, Cisco, Nokia have already set an SBT… or have committed to setting one.

Discover what an SBT is and how you can set one!

We want our partners to join CDP

Vodafone are an A rated company in the carbon reporting programme and have a well established partnership with CDP; the organization responsible for the leading global environmental disclosure system. They help companies to measure, manage, disclose and ultimately reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Discover the benefits of working with CDP!

We want our partners to set Renewable Energy targets and influential partners to join RE100.

Most renewable energy sources produce little to no global warming emissions. Even when including “life cycle” emissions of clean energy, the global warming emissions associated with renewable energy are minimal. Our influential partners can accelerate the journey to net zero by joining us at the RE100 initiative.

Discover more about RE100 and renewable energy targets

We want our SMEs to have support to achieve their Climate Goals.

The SME Climate Hub is a portal for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) provides a on-stop-shop to make a climate commitment and access best-in-class tools and resources. You will find support to measure your emissions, develop your climate strategy, reduce your emission and those in your supply chain.

Discover the SME Climate Hub

We want our partners to provide CO2 data for specific products and services and identify ways to reduce the footprint of them.

Determining the specific Carbon footprint of products and service allows us to better understand where and how the carbon is generated, in turn identifying opportunities to reduce the impact. LCA data is the key and we want our partners to provide this for as many products and services as possible. Or our “Design to Carbon” Lab can generate the carbon cost of the product on behalf of the supplier.

Discover the benefits and process behind LCAs