It is both.
Above all it is our responsibility to rapidly bring down our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. These emissions drive global climate change and tackling this issue – by everyone, and big business in particular – is essential, here and now. In Poland this is particularly challenging as up to 80% of energy is generated from fossil fuels, especially coal. Extracting and burning fossil fuels is indisputably the number one reason for the accelerating global climate crisis. Energy being the most important resource for a telco company, this is the first place we focus our efforts.
We will increase our use of renewables from 0% not long ago to at least 60% by 2025. (In 2021 we took the first steps and reached 6%.) This will be the major driver of our own emission reduction (Scopes 1 and 2) in the near term – by 2025 we intend to cut them by at least 65% vs 2015, perfectly in line with global, science-based Orange Group’s climate goals.
We do not forget, of course, our co-responsibility for the entire value-chain emissions by our suppliers and customers (Scope 3) – our net zero carbon goal for 2040 includes Scope 3. We are working to operationalise our 2025 ambition for Orange Polska in this area to announce it soon. And we have already acted to reduce these emissions, especially in the area of circular economy, both for network equipment and customer devices. A few examples include: reuse of network hardware; collecting used smartphones for refurbishment or recycling; extending the offer of refurbished devices available to our customers; or retrieving and refurbishing over half a million pieces of fixed customer equipment (modems, set-top-boxes) every single year. In April 2022, we launched the umbrella RE programme (repair, refurbishment, reselling, recycling) to accelerate our circular economy work and give it more visibility, encouraging our customers to join in.
