What exactly is an algorithm, and how will artificial intelligence change our lives? No one can predict what the future has in store for us, but we’re seeing the world change every day at an increasingly rapid pace. Computers and artificial intelligence have long since become indispensable in our day-to-day lives.
Our new special Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report for 2019 centers around these very topics, exploring what our digital future could look like, and how the web can help us play a role in shaping it.
The report focuses on topics currently sparking much debate within our society. As we take you through the societal trends “Good stewardship”, “New ways of working”, “Digital life”, and “Green future”, we offer you an insight into the exciting sustainability topics currently facing Deutsche Telekom. In the “Management & facts” section, we give you a detailed review of the progress we’ve made.
Here are some highlights from the 2019 reporting year:
- Firmly embedding our responsibility in our Group strategy: Deutsche Telekom has been taking on responsibility for these issues since the 1990s, with climate protection, social justice, and digital participation being some of our key action areas. In light of growing societal challenges, we modified our Group strategy in 2019 to explicitly make “acting responsibly” a core element.
- Taking action against climate change: In early 2019, the Board of Management set new and ambitious climate goals. The Group plans to switch the entire Deutsche Telekom network over to renewable energy sources by 2021 and aims to reduce its CO2 emissions by 90 percent by 2030. However, 80 percent of our carbon footprint comes from the manufacture and use of our products – we are aiming to reduce these emissions by 25 percent per customer by 2030, too.
- Launching the “We care for our planet” program: The Group-wide program “We care for our planet” is designed to make Deutsche Telekom gradually “greener”. Some of the recent measures we’ve taken as part of this initiative include introducing a sustainable smartphone recycling scheme, reducing the amount of packaging we use, and switching our service fleet to alternative drives.
- T-Shares in key sustainability indices: In 2019, T-Shares were once again listed in key sustainability indices, including RobecoSAM’s prominent DJSI World and DJSI Europe, the FTSE4Good index, and the UN Global Compact 100 index. During the reporting year, our shares also made their way into four other sustainability indices.
- Informing thousands of people about “digital democracy”: Using short-form content, discussion sessions, and workshops, we introduced the subject of “digital democracy” to thousands of people in 2019 – at the IFA trade show in Berlin, for example. One of the many issues we covered was how to recognize fake news and how this knowledge can be used on social media.
- Launching the #TAKEPART campaign: Under the hashtag #TAKEPART, we launched an initiative in 2019 to increase digital participation. #TAKEPART is not simply a short-term brand campaign – rather, it represents a long-term commitment to the equal participation of all people in our digital society.
- Introducing the “Manifesto of Agile Work”: Our digitalized working world is becoming increasingly complex and diverse, and requires a great deal of flexibility. In 2019, in conjunction with the Group Works Council, the Board of Management agreed on guidelines for shaping the digital world of work and summarized them in a “Manifesto of Agile Work”.
