Proud to address climate change throughout the value chain
The impact of companies on the planet doesn’t end at their factory gates or, in our case, at the base stations. “A company’s supply chain emissions are, on average, 11.4 times higher than those generated by direct activity”. These are the words of Sonya Bhonsle, Global Director of Value Chains at CDP, a non-profit organisation that specialises in environmental impact. CDP therefore calls for meaningful corporate climate action to decarbonise the entire value chain.
To encourage companies to take action it acknowledges Supplier Engagement Leaders and awards Supplier Engagement Ratings (SERs). Telefónica thus earned a position on the 2020 Supplier Engagement Leaderboard for a climate strategy and governance involving our value chain that’s reflected in ambitious targets (reducing our emissions in the value chain by 39% by 2025 and achieving “net zero” by 2040). The advances include our Supplier Engagement Program and our adherence to the 1.5 Supply Chain Leaders initiative.
Telefónica’s Supplier Engagement Program
The chief Scope-3 emissions from our value chain come from categories related to the purchases we make in our supply chain (56%) and the use of the products and services that we sell to our customers. In 2020 these emissions totalled 1,909,321 tCO2eq, a figure 26.8% lower than the one recorded in 2016 (our base year).
How are we achieving this drop? We’ve been working for two years with our most important suppliers on the Supplier Engagement Program. Working with them to enable them to set more ambitious reduction targets is proving very rewarding because it allows us to learn and innovate together.
Each supplier defined objectives related to the management of its footprint in diverse fields such as Energy, Emissions, Transport, Product (Life Cycle Analysis), Carbon Pricing and “100” Initiatives (use renewable energy as indicated by the RE100 initiative or have all electric vehicles, following the EV100). We’re also continuing to support suppliers that have already undertaken to reduce their emissions in the implementation of their projects and we’re launching new joint ones.
Similarly, in 2020 we created a sectoral working group as part of the JAC (Joint Audit Cooperation) initiative to drive climate action in our supply chain as a Telco sector. We’ve assessed the climate maturity of the strategic suppliers of the 15 companies that form part of the conglomerate and initiated several lines of work to increase their level of ambition, in addition to providing training for the most relevant Chinese companies in partnership with CDP and GSMA.
More ecodesign in devices
We’re also working on reducing the emissions that come from the products and services we sell to our customers, chiefly from the electricity consumption of the routers and TV set-top boxes in their homes. We’ll thus continue to promote the ecodesign of these devices. Our HGU currently consumes 30% less energy than the solutions we previously employed.
Another important action last year was when we joined the 1.5°C Supply Chain Leaders initiative, which advocates reducing the emissions of the small and medium-sized companies that form part of our value chain. This programme will enable us to enhance our role in accelerating the decarbonisation of the world economy.
Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, nearly 400 companies achieved a place on the CDP’s Supplier Engagement Leaderboard in 2020. This means that there’s a firm commitment to driving the transition towards a net-zero emission society.
