Keri Gilder
CEO, Colt
As an industry and as individuals, we are responsible for addressing climate change and making the world a better place. Our impact and our potential cannot be understated and it’s why sustainability is a key pillar of our strategy. We’ve already been working on this for several years, so I’m incredibly proud to present our first Sustainability Report as a culmination and recognition of our efforts.'
Planning for the future
What we’re doing to help build a sustainable future
As part of our commitment to a strong, sustainable future for our business, we subscribe to EcoVadis, a global index that benchmarks our environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance against more than 75,000 other organisations across all industries. Our most recent industry ranking has placed Colt in the 97th percentile, with a score of 71. This has earned us a Gold medal and a place in the top 3% of telco companies registered for ESG performance.
We’re working towards Zero Waste to Landfill. This means we’re making a concerted effort to ensure all our waste is prevented where possible, reused or recycled. This includes waste from our network equipment, IT equipment, office equipment and our supply chain.
We’re proud to offer our employees opportunities to be sustainable at work. Our ‘Green Team’ initiative was started by a passionate group of employees in the UK in 2019. In 2021 it was rolled out globally, allowing employees in all countries to share their passion for the environment and work together to drive environmental engagement on a local level. Environmental Awareness training is mandatory for our employees globally ensuring that we are united in our vision of a greener Colt.
Colt is proud to spotlight employees who are pioneers for sustainability. Our Recycling Heroes series highlighted employees around the globe who are making an impact on their local communities. Our CEO proudly made the health of our planet one of her core beliefs in the workplace, offering a special CEO Award to two Sustainability Champions. We celebrated Earth Day 2021 with two exceptional webinars featuring sustainability experts remotely from Japan and New Zealand.
We’re committed to being sustainable in our places of work. We’ve initiated the removal of single-use plastics across our offices globally, and even planned a new rooftop garden at our office in Madrid.
For when Colt employees are on the road, we're working towards moving our entire fleet to electric vehicles over the next few years.
Our laptop replacement program removes outdated assets from the business but we are extending the life of them by sending to local schools – this also has a broader impact in Corporate Social Responsibility and digital inclusion.
The new devices contain 65% post-consumer recycled material as well as being more energy efficient, delivered in boxes made from 75% recycled fibres and bamboo – this again means that we are extending the life of key materials and reducing the need for virgin resources which ties into the circular economy model.
Ambitious Science Based Targets
Colt is committed to reducing its carbon emissions as part of an ambitious sustainability transformation for our technology and data centre services.
We have set comprehensive, near-term emissions reduction targets approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
We are also working on developing our long-term targets and net zero strategy.
Our aim is to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 47% by 2030 and work closely with suppliers to significantly reduce Scope 3 emissions throughout our supply chain, to limit global warming to well below 2°C by 2030.
What are Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the different Scopes?
Our carbon footprint measures the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused both directly and indirectly by an organisation. We have completed an extensive investigation into where emissions are created in Colt and also in our supply chain. GHG emissions are categorised into a number of 'scopes' to help companies understand where the emissions originated and how they can be reduced.
These GHG emissions result from owned or controlled sources, such as Colt's company vehicles, gas consumption and diesel use for generators globally.
These GHG emissions come from purchased electricity, steam, heating, or cooling consumed by any Colt location around the world.
These GHG emissions come from the rest of the value chain and are made up mostly from supply chain emissions. This scope also includes business travel, employee commuting, upstream and downstream leased assets, and waste disposal.
How will we achieve our Science Based Targets?
0%
renewable electricity for all sites globally by 20230%
of supply chain emissions aligned to 1.5C SBT by 20250%
electric vehicles in company fleet by 2025 and 75% by 20300%
switch to renewable gas by 2030
What are Colt’s baseline emissions?
We have done extensive investigation to truly understand our starting point. Our teams have used 2019 as a baseline as 2020 was an unpredicted year due to the pandemic.
In 2019, our greenhouse gas emissions totalled 504,610 tonnes CO2e. This breaks down as follows:
Scope 1 – Direct Emissions: 4,832 tonnes CO2e (1% total footprint)
Scope 2 – Indirect Emissions: 36,089 tonnes CO2e (7%)
Scope 3 – Value Chain Emissions: 463,689 tonnes CO2e (92%)
Our 2030 aims
Scope 1 and Scope 2
- A carbon reduction of 47% by 2030 to meet the ambitious target of limiting temperatures to 1.5 degrees
How will we reduce Scope 3 emissions?
As you can see from the above baseline our Scope 3 emissions are a substantial element of our overall emissions. We are committed to working with our value chain to reduce these emissions using methods such as;
- Engaging with suppliers to encourage them to make increasingly sustainable choices- this is important because by them reducing their Scope 1 and 2 emissions it reduces our Scope 3 emissions
- Encouraging our suppliers to make the same commitment as Colt by setting Science-based targets aligned to 1.5 degrees for scopes 1 & 2
- 40% reduction in business travel during 2022 through increased usage of video conferencing tools
We are already in the decade which will define the global response to the ever-increasing threat of climate change. It is important to Colt that we set robust, long term targets firmly rooted in science to enable us to help mitigate the risk this has to humanity and the planet. The Science-Based Targets Initiative is recognised globally as the best authority in this space.
The long-term nature of science-based targets ensures that we have a clear direction for our business as well as shifting our focus towards the development of innovative solutions and new opportunities to support the transition to a low carbon economy. We also want to build in resilience to our operations by moving beyond current regulation.
This is the future of business and our customers can rest assured that by working with Colt, we will not have a significant impact on their carbon footprint as we work hard to drive down emissions across our entire value chain. We must all act together for the greater good of our planet.
Adopted in 2015, the Paris Agreement is the first-ever legally-binding climate change agreement.
It sets out a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change. Countries who signed this agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees, and to aim to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees as this lower temperature increase will significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.