Intro to the sustainability scorecard

About the sustainability scorecard

This sustainability scorecard benchmarks the performance of a selection of companies against seven sustainability-related criteria, and is designed to highlight the areas in which the listed companies are more and less mature in their sustainability strategies. The companies listed includes telcos and small selection of others in adjacent industries (technology, infrastructure).

It supports telcos and their partners to:

  1. Benchmark sustainability performance against competitors
  2. Understand areas of relative strength
  3. Identify specific actions operators can take to embed sustainability more effectively across their organisations

Our list of companies are scored against seven sustainability criteria including:

1. Holistic sustainability reporting. Whether the company has history of publishing sustainability reports over a period of time and discussion of sustainability-related initiatives across the organisation shows a long-term and company-wide commitment to progress.

2. Sustainability commitments and incentives. Evidence of board and employee level incentives tied to ESG targets demonstrates that the organisation sees achieving sustainability targets as core to its long term competitiveness.

3. Public reporting on scope 1, 2 and 3 with associated emission reduction targets. Detailed reporting creates confidence that the company is making tangible progress towards net-zero goals.

4. Green finance. This includes the issuing of green bonds or sustainability linked bonds, demonstrating that the organisation is building buy-in with its finance team.

5. Commitment and progress against diversity and inclusion targets. Companies with a holistic approach to sustainability will articulate progress on social and governance initiatives, and how these bring long term value to the organisation.

6. Commitment to biodiversity. Initiatives to assess and mitigate the organisation’s impact on biodiversity demonstrate forward thinking in the sustainability team.

7. Enablement. Companies that are committed to enabling their customers to reduce their carbon footprint will have concerted initiatives that are delivering measurable benefits.

The sustainability scorecard builds on STL’s ongoing sustainability research.

Read more about sustainability

Article

Pitfalls of emissions enablement

Telecoms operators provide enabling technology to help their customers reduce carbon emissions. However, exaggerating claims of enablement may have adverse consequences. This article explores how telecoms operators should approach these claims.

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Webinar

5G’s role in reducing carbon emissions – over 1.6B tonnes by 2030t

In this webinar STL Partners demonstrates which 5G use cases play the biggest role in reducing emissions and how the ecosystem must work together

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Research

Telco roadmap to net-zero carbon emissions: Why, when and how

Based on discussions with 40 service providers (SPs) this report explores the challenges, priorities, strategies and best practices they identified around reducing carbon emissions.

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