Responsibility

Along with other pillars of our business we want to grow in social responsibility, which has always been very high on our agenda. It is in the DNA of Orange Polska, embedded in our daily business logic. We believe only authentic engagement brings value to all stakeholders. Orange Polska has set ambitious ESG goals for itself and is ideally placed with its services both to help others reduce their own environmental footprint and to ensure that no one is left behind. We believe that the telecom sector has an essential role to play in the transition to carbon neutrality.

Our primary goal is to be climate-neutral and achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2040, ten years ahead of the EU climate goals. Net Zero covers the entire emissions of Orange Polska: scopes 1 and 2 (own direct and indirect emissions) and scope 3 (emission throughout the entire value chain – suppliers, employees, customers). In the first period of action, by 2025, we will reduce our CO₂ emissions in scopes 1 and 2 by as much as 65% compared to 2015. We want to achieve it primarily through increasing the share of renewable energy in our energy mix to at least 60% by 2025 from 0% in 2020. This means that we have to proactively search for and support new projects in this area. We also continue to optimise energy consumption: we have reduced our consumed energy volumes each of the past few years despite constant increase of data volumes on our networks. Deployment of new, much more efficient technologies, such as fibre and 5G, will also contribute here.

To reach our 2040 goal, we will also accelerate efforts to reduce emissions in the entire supply chain, including suppliers and customers. This will include implementation of the principles of circular economy. For example, we will buy back older smartphones and accept used or broken ones for recycling in every Orange store.

Digital inclusion has a particularly important social dimension today. This means dissemination of high-speed internet access on the one hand, and education and development of digital competencies on the other. We are active in both of these fields. We invest in optical fibre, and by using public funds strive to reach areas more distant from major cities. These areas often lack infrastructure and access to modern services. In addition, we have been supporting the digital education of Poles for more than 15 years through our Orange Foundation. The Orange Foundation is committed to this and implements digital education programmes in schools. Over 5,000 children take part in such programmes each year. Along with our social partners, we also train teachers as part of the project called Lesson:Enter, which is co-financed by the European Union. This is the largest initiative of its type in Poland. In total, 75,000 teachers will benefit from this programme.

Open culture and diversity are also very important for us: data prove that diverse teams are more effective and work better. This applies to all levels of an organisation, from the frontline to the Management Board. We want to pursue more opportunities and greater diversity, focusing on increasing the share of female leaders (to 35%) and female managers (to 40%).

In Orange Polska, we have been successfully implementing a policy of corporate business responsibility in all areas of our business for several years now. Our corporate and social responsibility (CSR) strategy accounts for the Company’s business objectives and fits into their implementation. The conclusions from a dialogue with stakeholders as well as market trends and social challenges for our industry in Poland and abroad have been key elements in our organisational culture which takes account of the expectations of employees and other stakeholders’ groups – customers, investors, suppliers, business and social partners as well as the environment – in creating and implementing our business strategy. We believe that such an approach generates benefits for the Company and its environment, leads to long-term development and contributes to the improvement of everyone’s lives. Therefore, in Orange Polska we have created a social responsibility strategy, focusing on five areas which are of key importance from the point of view of our sector and our operations on the Polish market.

In 2021, we launched the new CSR strategy for 2021–2025. This strategy continues our previous social and environmental policies and commitments. A strong foundation of this strategy is responsible management – our values, ethics and compliance, and our dialogue with stakeholders as a tool for understanding their expectations.

Responsible management and actions within these four pillars account for our social impact, which is analysed in 6 areas: economy, innovations, customers, environment, communities and employees.

The new .Grow strategy is also important from the point of view of social responsibility and sustainable development. For the first time, social responsibility has found itself on par with other strategic pillars, being one of the four main areas of the Company’s activity. Activities and goals in the “Responsibility” pillar focus primarily on two issues – the impact on the climate and environment and ensuring broadly understood digital inclusion.