A greener economy that simultaneously promotes human rights and social standards: against the backdrop of pressing global challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity or a shortage of skilled workers, many companies have set themselves major goals in these areas. But how can investors or policymakers identify and assess progress? Transparent and globally comparable sustainability reporting by companies is becoming increasingly relevant for this purpose. The requirements are currently making a quantum leap with the aim of achieving financial reporting status. This week, Deutsche Telekom received the "Building Public Trust Award" for outstanding and consistent sustainability reporting in the DAX 40 for the third time. The focus was particularly on the topics of EU taxonomy, climate targets and “CSRD readiness”.
In the midst of growing global challenges, transparent, globally comparable sustainability reporting is becoming increasingly important. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which was adopted by the EU Parliament in November 2022 and is to be implemented from 2024, plays a key role here. Its aim is to increase the accountability of European companies with regard to sustainability aspects and to introduce binding reporting standards at EU level for the first time. The EU Taxonomy Regulation complements this initiative. It obliges companies that fall within the scope of the CSRD to disclose the extent to which their business activities meet the taxonomy's sustainability criteria.
Ecological and social responsibility an integral part of our activity
At Deutsche Telekom, ecological and social responsibility have been essential components of our corporate actions and an integral part of our corporate governance for more than two decades. We have laid down our self-image as a responsible company in our Group strategy. Our aspiration is not only to be the leading digital telecommunications company, but also to act as a pioneer in the area of sustainability.
To achieve this, we have set ourselves ambitious targets. As an interim target for climate neutrality, we have set ourselves the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared with 2020 across the entire value chain, i.e., from production and our own operations to end-customer use. By 2040 at the latest, we want to be completely climate-neutral ("net zero").
Deutsche Telekom honored for credible and consistent sustainability reporting
We report annually on the progress of our sustainable actions along our value chain in our Corporate Responsibility Report. Our ESG KPIs (Key Performance Indicators for environmental, social and governance criteria) play an important role here, as they serve as instruments for managing our sustainability activities and in part also as the basis for management compensation. Due to their high relevance, these KPIs are already published in the summarized non-financial statement in the annual report.
Our sustainability reporting received the Building Public Trust Award 2023 in the "DAX" category at the Sustainability Congress in Berlin as the best consistent reporting. The topics of taxonomy, climate targets and "CSRD readiness" played a special role in the evaluation. This is the third time Deutsche Telekom has received the Building Public Trust Award, following 2017 and 2020.
“Trust is particularly important in today's volatile times. The prerequisite for this is transparent and, above all, honest reporting. For us, the disclosure of our sustainability activities and measures is not a marketing tool but has been guided for over 20 years by the aspiration to transparently document our progress. We are therefore particularly pleased to have been recognized for this commitment,” says Melanie Kubin-Hardewig, Vice President Group Corporate Responsibility.
The Building Public Trust Award
Since 2016, the Building Public Trust Award has recognized companies for credible and consistent sustainability reporting. The Building Public Trust Award is presented by PwC Germany. To ensure the independence of the award, the analysis of the companies was conducted by Prof. Alexander Bassen and Prof. Kerstin Lopatta from the University of Hamburg. The award-winning companies were selected with the help of an independent jury of top experts from industry, research and development. The assessment included quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria, including the reliability and completeness of the information.
