Contents
Environment

Protecting
the climate

  • Man-made climate change is real. One thing is perfectly clear: in order to protect the environment, we have to start with ourselves. That is why Deutsche Telekom is working on reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions, for example, with highly energy-efficient data centers. But more is needed for a sustainable, low-carbon future, and digitization will play a key role in this goal. Intelligent, connected technology can help save energy worldwide on a large scale.

Protecting the climate

We want to make an effective contribution to climate protection. To this end, we are investing in measures that decrease our ecological footprint. But that’s not all. We can achieve a lot more in terms of climate pro­tection by helping our customers reduce their CO₂ emissions as well. One way we can do this is with our cloud solutions, with which a midsize company can decrease its CO₂ emissions by an average of 21 metric tons per year.

Increased Performance,
Reduced Emissions

  • Information and telecommunication tech­nology can help protect the environment. How? For one thing, by making process­es more efficient through the use of new applications in the industrial sector, thereby saving energy. But this requires transmitting and processing increasingly more data — and operating the necessary network infrastructure for this consumes energy as well. We are investing in state-of-the-art, highly efficient technology so as not to boost energy consumption due to the growing data volumes. Among other things, we will soon only be transmitting informa­tion in small data packets with the help of the Internet Protocol (IP). The pack­ets arrive at their destination faster and with less power consumption. We also consolidate our data centers at only a few locations and invest in intelligent cooling technology and efficient com­puter architecture. We built one of the most efficient data centers in Biere, Saxony-Anhalt in 2014. It was awarded the respected LEED Gold sustainability certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which only a few data centers worldwide can boast. In Biere we are currently increasing ca­pacity again due to high demand — from 20,000 to an expected 50,000 servers by 2018. And what is the result of these comprehensive measures? The total amount of our data centers’ CO₂ emis­sions is decreasing slightly — despite increasing data volumes.

Low-Emission
Traveling

  • Be it for customer visits or maintenance activities, our employees are on the road a lot. We want them to en­gage in low-emission traveling to the greatest extent pos­sible. That is why we again lowered our CO₂ emission target for our company and service vehicles in 2016. By 2020 the emissions of all newly purchased passen­ger cars should only average 95g CO₂/km in Germany.
  • We are also trying out alternative drive systems, such as electric cars. For short distances, we offer shuttle ser­vices or loaner bicycles at some locations. Additionally, our employees in Germany can use the salary sacrificing scheme to get a bicycle or e-bike at reduced cost. Even better: we are increasingly staying put — thanks to envi­ronmentally friendly video conferences.

Praise for
Transparency

  • Ultimately, our company’s value also depends on how the financial markets assess our performance. Analysts compile comparative lists and award points, among other things for sustainability. We provide them with the required information for this. CDP publishes an impor­tant international score list. CDP honors companies that report on their greenhouse gas emissions in an espe­cially transparent and comprehensive manner and that have implemented a good strategy to decrease their emissions. We have been publishing our CO₂ emissions information since 2003. In addition to direct emissions, such as those caused by our vehicle fleet, we have also been reporting our indirect emissions for some years now, such as those generated by our suppliers and customers. We qualified for the CDP A-List for the first time in 2016 — as only one of eight telecommunications companies worldwide.

Solutions for a Better World

  • The social and ecological benefits of information and communication tech­nologies are many. These technologies help save energy, bring doctors into pa­tients’ living rooms via video conference and enable the industrial sector to ren­der their logistics more environmentally
  • friendly. We started analyzing our port­folio based on sustainability aspects in 2014. The results of the 2016 analysis: in the spring we generated 39 percent of our revenue with products and services that feature sustainability benefits and make a positive contribution to sustain­able development.

Sustainable Benefits
of Selected Products

  • 21

    metric tons less CO₂ emissions per year thanks to cloud solutions for SMEs

  • 1.8

    kilos less material consumption per TV user through virtual set-top boxes

  • 3.8

    million fewer sick days between 2015 and 2020 because digital work from home eliminates stressful commutes

What Should I Do with
My Old Cell Phone?

  • On average, German consumers replace their cell phone every one to two years. Many of them simply place their old de­vice in a drawer, which is where a lot of valuable raw materials such as gold, sil­ver, platinum or tantalum lie dormant and unused. It would be much better to return the used device so that it can be prop­erly recycled. In Germany this is possible
  • at numerous collection points operated by Deutsche Telekom’s cell phone col­lection center. The German environmen­tal organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) has been our partner for collecting used cell phones for 13 years. To date we have been able to collect more than two million old devices through our joint col­lection system. We donate the proceeds to projects that support the environment, education and health. Also our national companies are commit­ted to recycle valuable raw materials from cell phones. In the USA for example, all mobile customers can hand in their old cell phones, batteries, accessories, tab­lets and laptop computers — regardless of brand, model or manufacturer. 87 per­cent of the collected devices are reused or resold. The rest are properly recycled.