BT Clients Highlight the Challenges – and Opportunities – with Sustainability

BT hosted an event dedicated to sustainability issues at its Adastral Park R&D center this week, where strategy leaders gathered to share their experiences and visions.

It has been interesting to follow how the needle has shifted in terms of the focus of sustainability events. A couple of years ago, there was a lot of bravado and back-slapping as businesses set out their targets on Net Zero and ethical sourcing, often with limited detail on how they would be achieved.

But as we head towards 2024, looming regulatory pressure (the SEC is finalizing its new Climate Risk Disclosure Rule) and a surge in the number of lawsuits relating to “green-washing” and misleading ESG reporting, organizations now need to back up their talk with meaningful action.

BT itself has a massive hill to climb in terms of reaching its target of becoming a Net Zero business by the end of March 2031. Sarwar Khan, the company’s lead on sustainability, states that the company is one of the UK’s single largest consumers of electricity, but expects to make significant progress by replacing legacy network infrastructure with more efficient equipment, converting its 30,000-strong vehicle fleet to Electric Vehicles. The company’s procurement head Cyril Pourrat said that the company is tackling the critical area of the group’s huge supply chain by giving greater weighting to the sustainability credentials of potential suppliers over cost – and he insists that this will not change even in the event of further economic deterioration.

The company also sees a major role in supporting its clients’ sustainability efforts through its sustainable networks and solutions including BT’s Carbon Network Dashboard and Digital Carbon Calculator, contributing to its commitment to reducing 60m tonnes of CO2 emissions across its customer base by March 2030. This week, it announced a new tie-up with Johnson Controls to harness the latter’s OpenBlue platform to help clients gain a better understanding of energy data across their buildings infrastructure. Research from the World Green Building Council claims that buildings account for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, and the platform is designed to help customers leverage the growing volumes of data being generated as cooling, heating and security systems become more connected.

The National Health Services (NHS) is one candidate for this approach, as it runs one of the largest buildings estates in the UK, which accounts for around a quarter of its total energy consumption. The organization, which generates more CO2 emissions annually than that generated by all the air traffic coming in and out of Heathrow Airport, highlighted the impact that optimizing patient pathways can generate. One trust claimed that one in every 20 cars on UK roads is associated with the NHS (patient, staff or supplier journeys), and highlighted how in the rural areas of the West of Scotland, millions of miles of patient journeys have been saved by a switch to virtual consultations. The virtual model is not always the preferred option, but the NHS has huge potential to eliminate repeat or unnecessary journeys by streamlining the number of touchpoints that patients have to go through to receive their treatment.

There was also some discussion around the potential for NHS in the circular economy. BT’s healthcare sector leader cited figures that claimed that the BT could generate more than £3bn in new revenue streams if it created new products from the plastic waste generated by surgery equipment, packaging, etc. TXO and Asecca, two prominent suppliers of refurbished computer hardware suppliers shared encouraging stories about their momentum, although recent PAC research has found that refurbished equipment continues to account for a very small proportion of enterprise workspace estates.

Technology, and more specifically, converting sustainability data into valuable insight, will be a vital part of the journey for all organizations. However, BT acknowledged that technology is also “part of the problem,” in the same week that Microsoft admitted that its water consumption increased by 34% last year, partly as a result of the explosion in generative AI workloads. Gas network operator Cadent Gas stated that while it sees the digitization of its physical infrastructure as critical to accelerating its Net Zero progress, it is also weighing up the potential impact of the increased compute requirements required to support investment in digital twins.

Beyond technology, one of the most interesting and informative success stories came from logistics giant DHL, which two years ago, set its Irish operation the challenge of achieving Net Zero status. The operation was granted carte blanche to achieve this goal and has made a major investment in a biomass plant in Cork to convert farming waste into fuel for its truck network. DHL will also support its retail clients with the initiative, and the company highlights the importance of this collaboration – including support from the government and vehicle manufacturers – as being critical to building momentum.

Another BT customer story highlighted significant challenges in becoming more sustainable due to the nature of its business, and its green initiatives are mainly tied to regulatory compliance. This is the case of the Ministry of Defence. Representatives of the MoD present at the event highlighted that switching to more sustainable fuel alternatives globally would logistically present major obstacles due to its many different sites around the world. It also cited a significant reliance on progress in the private sector. However, as one of the UK’s largest landowners, the Ministry believes that there is some strong potential in improving the efficiency of its buildings estates.

One of the biggest tasks facing sustainability strategy leaders is how to get to grips with the Scope 3 emissions generated by the wider supply and value chains. To tackle this, BT has teamed with SAP, Catena-X, the European Commission, WBCSD PACT and others, to enable sustainability data exchange across the value chain. The aim is to help organizations move from aggregated averages to transactional actuals, or clear and concrete data insights through SAP’s Green Ledger and sustainability data exchange platform, where parties can bring their own carbon calculator through open APIs.

There is a lot of work to be done, but examples such as this highlight how working across traditional company boundaries can speed up the journey.