In line with its agenda of building a sustainable business with responsibility towards all stakeholders and local communities, Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecommunications services provider, has released the latest edition of its India Sustainability Report.
Airtel’s India Sustainability Report 2016 offers a comprehensive overview of the company’s sustainability initiatives and future vision, taking into cognizance both social and environmental aspects.
It also offers detailed insights into how the company successfully leveraged its wide network & distribution, based on accessibility and affordable services that has contributed significantly towards societal empowerment and company’s ecofriendly initiatives.
Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said: “Building a sustainable organisation of the future with high standards of governance and corporate citizenship is at the core of our growth strategy. We have undertaken initiatives across the organization to build a 360 degree sustainability agenda and the results over the past few years have been very encouraging. We have also outlined a clear sustainability vision for the future and will continue to build on the positive start we have made.”
Key highlights of Airtel’s sustainability initiatives
Green Initiatives
· 74% reduction in CO2 emissions across network infrastructure in the last five years and 27% reduction in the last financial year.
· The company has saved around 70Mn sheets of paper from FY 2015 and over one billion sheets of paper since FY 2011-12 through a paperless billing initiative. Over the last one year, the company has also seen a 24% increase in number of customers opting for paperless bills.
· The company has saved around 1490 MWh of energy and saved over 10.36 Mn litres of diesel across network infrastructure, data centre and facilities operations, all through its green initiatives.
Customer/Partner Initiatives
· Airtel’s network touches over 95% Indian population with presence across 7, 885 census towns and 779, 919 census and non-census villages.
· The company launched India’s first Open Network, making the entire network information including coverage site details and signal strength, available to customers.
· The company has reported 26% reduction in customer complaints over the past two years.
· Airtel has 90% India based suppliers with over 83% local procurement thereby driving local economy.
Community Initiatives
The company’s support to over 254 Satya Bharti School program, 498 learning centers and Quality support programmes has benefitted over 85,000 underprivileged children in rural India, impacting 150,000 underprivileged children cumulatively. Over 14,000 children who benefitted from this educational outreach programme have been mainstreamed to Government schools.
Pledging its support to government’s Swach Bharat Abhiyaan, the company constructed 12,700 toilets and handed over ‘free of cost’ to households benefitting over 63,000 individuals across Ludhiana district.
Commitments
· The company aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 70% per unit basis in the next three years.
· The company is targeting deployment of over 160, 000 base stations in the next three years to the drive the agenda of digital inclusion and improving customer experience and accessibility.
· Self-regulation: The company will contribute INR 100,000 for every 0.01% increase in call drop rate beyond 1.5% / month against the TRAI prescribed limit of 2%. The amount will be contributed towards education of the under privileged.
