Jul 28 2014
Liberty Global plc (“Liberty Global”) announces environmental targets as part of the company's commitment to Corporate Responsibility (CR). Liberty Global commits to improve the energy efficiency of its electricity consumption by 15% every year through 2020 (in kWh/TB), and be five times more carbon efficient (in metric tons of CO2e/TB) by 2020, using 2012 as our base year.
We will normalize our environmental performance per terabyte (TB) of data transported through our networks as this measurement most closely represents the scale of our business and therefore the impact it has on the environment.
In 2013, Liberty Global began delivering on this multi-year commitment with a 29% increase in energy efficiency and a 32% increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) efficiency. These savings were primarily achieved through continued investment in new network technologies and the optimization of energy use at our data centers, as well as the production and procurement of renewable energy.
These targets are being released as part of our new 2013 Corporate Responsibility Report, entitled ‘Empowering a Digital Society’. This report provides a comprehensive overview of Liberty Global's performance against its strategic CR Framework and prior year commitments in four areas of focus: promoting a digital society, building trust with our customers, managing our environmental impacts and being a responsible business.
In developing the report, Liberty Global became an early adopter of the Global Reporting Initiative's G4 Framework, which has become the leading standard for sustainability reporting. ‘Empowering a Digital Society’ is written in accordance with the G4 Framework at a core level, which requires CR disclosures on topics that are of material interest to our stakeholders and support our business objectives.
In addition to our environmental performance, highlights of the report include:
- The refurbishment of 4.3 million set-top boxes and modems in 2013, avoiding 7,200 metric tons of waste that would otherwise have ended up in landfills, resulting in financial savings of $280 million
- Reducing the absolute energy consumption of our new Horizon Multimedia Gateway by 40%
- Improving broadband speeds in nearly all of our markets, and supporting “connectivity everywhere” for our broadband subscribers with hotspots, homespots and Community WiFi
- Paving the way for digital jobs through hosting CoderDojo workshops for young people to learn to create websites and applications
- Protecting children online with the launch of a new toolkit for teens called ‘The Web We Want’, developed by European Schoolnet
Rick Westerman, head of Liberty Global’s CR Committee, said: “Each year we embed our culture of Corporate Responsibility more deeply into our business, while adapting to the inevitable changes in our fast-paced markets, the aspirations of our increasingly sophisticated customers, and the significant growth of our company. 2013 was a pivotal year in which we acquired Virgin Media in the UK, creating substantial scale and greater opportunities to pursue our CR agenda. With the publication of these environmental targets, we are challenging our organization to achieve even more in the coming years."
Liberty Global’s 2013 CR Report can be accessed through www.libertyglobal.com/cr.