Innovation in BT supply chain cuts CO2 impact by more than 30,000 tonnes
Suppliers Huawei and SGW Global Awarded Silver Status Awards in BT Better Future Supplier Forum
BT has helped suppliers reduce their carbon footprint by 30,238 tonnes – equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of 2,000 people – within the first year of launching its Better Future Supplier Forum.
The Better Future Supplier Forum (BFSF) was set up in April 2012 to drive innovation in sustainability throughout BT’s supply chain and forms a key part of the delivery of BT’s commitment to being a leader in responsible and sustainable business.
Two of BT’s suppliers of electronic devices, Huawei and SGW Global, who took part in the first year pilot, have been presented with achievement awards for their strong performance in making BT products and services more sustainable.
Erik Raphael, Director of BT’s Consumer Devices business, presented both manufacturers with the Silver Status BFSF Awards for their work in saving CO2 across their manufacturing processes and for reducing carbon footprints of their products. They identified opportunities to improve efficiency, implementing eco design best practices and by collaborating across their end-to-end supply chain.
BT technical experts worked with the suppliers’ operational and research and development teams to review approaches and performance and provide guidance and support to make improvements. SGW Global, for example, used the opportunity to redesign an existing product, reducing its overall carbon footprint by more than 30 per cent.
A key part to all these improvements has been the underlying effort by BT to help educate and improve its suppliers’ understanding of sustainability and how it can be applied in industry.
Following the success of the first year pilot, the Better Future Supplier Forum is now being extended to other global suppliers.
Other key achievements of the BFSF participants so far include: savings of more than 7,000 tonnes of CO2 from across the manufacturing process; the reduction of product CO2 footprint of more than 23,000 tonnes; savings of 102,000 m3 of water from manufacturing sites involved in producing BT products; and the reduction of around 15 per cent of solid waste production across manufacturing processes.
Erik Raphael said: “The inaugural year of the Better Future Supplier Forum has been a great success and those suppliers that have taken part have demonstrated that they have not only fully understood and internalised the key principles of sustainability, but they have applied them as well. I’m really excited about building on this progress and welcome those suppliers that are joining the Forum in the coming months.”
Niall Dunne, Chief Sustainability Officer for BT, said: “The Better Future Supplier Forum demonstrates how collaboration across the supply chain can have a positive impact on our shared environment. By encouraging scrutiny of not only our own operations but those of our partners and suppliers, we’re able to offer more sustainable products and services that help to ensure we make a net positive contribution – for the benefit of everyone.”
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About The Better Future Supplier Forum:
The Better Future Supplier Forum was set up by BT in 2012 to drive innovation in sustainability in BT’s supply chain. It forms a key part of BT’s delivery of its commitment to be a responsible and sustainable business leader.
Specifically the Better Future Supplier Forum is a collaborative learning and development forum set up to identify, collect, disseminate and implement best practice on sustainability. This involves a process which assesses suppliers against best practice, educates and trains them in sustainability principles and motivates practical implementation. Suppliers are then awarded ‘gold’, ‘silver’ or ‘bronze status according to their performance against an initial baseline score.
About BT’s Net Good Programme
BT’s Net Good vision is to help society live within the constraints of our planet’s resources through our products and people. We have a 2020 goal to help customers reduce carbon emissions by at least three times the full carbon impact of our business.
For more information on the Supplier Forum, please go to
www.bt.com/betterfuturesupplierforum or contact Gabrielle Giner, Programme Manager for Net Good.
