BT meets the carbon footprint challenge

Conferencing services have reduced the need for BT staff to travel and helped to slash carbon
emissions

In 2010, BT became the first company to successfully cut 23 per cent of its business flights as part of
WWF's One in Five Challenge. It’s a programme that helps companies reduce their reliance on flying
in favour of lower carbon alternatives. It also encourages a culture of virtual meetings in preference
to flying, which improves the productivity and well-being of staff.

Not only has BT cut its business flying, it has also reduced the need to travel. Increasingly for BT,
conferencing services are the preferred way to manage day-to-day meetings. Employees are
encouraged to use voice, video and web conferencing rather than meeting face-to-face.

As a result, in a single year, BT has:

Cut its business flights from 85,130 to 65,510, a reduction of nearly 20,000 flights

Slashed distances flown by 12 million kms

Reduced its CO2 emissions by more than 1,700 tonnes in avoided flights

The key benefits of reduced travel have been a reduction in BT’s travel expenditure, reduced CO2
emissions as well as increased productivity and improved work–life balance for employees.

BT Conferencing Services has helped BT introduce flexible working conditions across its workforce
and revolutionised the way that employees work. Home and remote working is now standard
business practice for many BT employees.

Out of its 100,000-plus global workforce BT has 14,500 permanent home workers and a further
64,000 employees equipped for home working.

BT encourages its employees to use low carbon travel and to use BT’s conferencing facilities
wherever possible to avoid travel altogether. All business flights are booked via one travel
management Company and all air travel is pre-authorised.

Helping people Get IT Together

Digital technology can improve the lives of people in the most disadvantaged sectors of society

Digital inclusion seeks to help such people by understanding and addressing the financial, physical,
and psychological barriers that stand in their way. BT has been helping people to get online since
2002 by bringing the benefits of ICT to disadvantaged communities across the UK.
As part of Race Online 2012 – a national challenge led by Martha Lane Fox, the government’s digital
inclusion champion – BT has pledged its support to help get another 100,000 people online for the
first time by the end of the London Olympic year.

To help achieve this goal, BT has launched the Get IT Together programme
[www.bt.com/getittogether].The aim is to engage the entire BT organisation and work with its digital
inclusion partners, to encourage more people to get online.

Empowering communities

The BT Community Connections awards scheme provides internet access to grassroots organisations
working to help local communities get online. Since the scheme was launched in 2000, over 7,000
award packages have been made to community groups throughout the UK and the Republic of
Ireland.

BT is also working with a number of partners, including the Institute of Directors and IT training
specialist e-skills UK, in support of Getting British Business Online. This joint initiative widens the
digital inclusion agenda to encourage small businesses that do not yet have a website to establish an
online presence.

Age no barrier

BT has been working with the Age UK charity (formerly Help the Aged and Age Concern) since 2005.
Some 60 per cent of people over the age of 65 have never been online, compared with 18 per cent
of all adults.

BT supports the Age UK Digital Inclusion Network, which has 178 member organisations throughout
the UK delivering computer skills training to older people. By providing the right support and
encouragement, it gives older people a reason to use the internet for the first time and the
opportunity to develop skills and overcome fears.

Aimed at younger people, the BT Internet Ranger of the Year awards scheme recognises the valuable
contribution of children under 16 to teaching older people about technology.

Combined efforts

In partnership with national charity Citizens Online, BT has supported 23 projects since 2002 as part
of the Everybody Online programme. In each case, a local project officer is employed to work with
other stakeholders – typically social services, libraries, schools, and local charities – to tackle digital
exclusion in areas facing disadvantage and low levels of internet usage.

Inclusive services

In addition to working with charities and local communities, BT is committed to promoting inclusion
through its products and services. A BT accessibility website, at www.bt.com/includingyou, gives the
elderly and those with disabilities an easy route to BT services.

Everyone’s a winner
Caroline Sheridan, BT director of Corporate Responsibility, concludes: “Connecting people is at the
heart of BT. We understand that it’s increasingly important for people to have confidence in using
technology to help enhance their lives. Our commitment reflects the enormous potential digital
inclusion has to make a positive difference, not only to the lives of individuals but also to society as a
whole.”

BT - giving young people real life skills

It’s a competitive world. That’s why young people need the right skills to get the most out of life

Increasingly policy makers and employers recognise the need to equip young people with soft skills
such as communication, negotiation, strategic thinking and teamwork. Such areas are underserved
in the traditional curriculum and there are few readily available and affordable resources.

To help plug this gap – and as part of its commitment to help build a more economically sustainable,
educated, and socially inclusive society - BT has developed Personal Skills Journey teaching aids.

These consist of twelve PDF downloads designed to provide young people aged 14 to 19 with the
knowledge and skills they need to help with the transition from learning to the wider world.

The Personal Skills Journey forms part of a range of resources that BT offers free of charge via the BT
Learning + Skills programme at www.bt.com/learningandskills.

This is aimed at equipping young people – and the people who teach and care for them – with the
skills to get the most out of the world around them.

These educational resources help people become better, more effective communicators, whatever
their age. Ranging from videos and workbooks to online activities and games, they are all developed
by expert educators and teachers, and tested extensively in and out of the classroom.

Authentic confidence

“One of the objectives of the Personal Skills Journey, was to help students develop skills based on a
better understanding of themselves”, said Libby Hammond, founder of Confident Communicators
Ltd and author of the teachers’ guides that accompany the student booklets.

A key ingredient of her work is to enable people to develop what she calls “authentic confidence”,
which is confidence based on positive personal traits and natural communication talents such as
humour or empathy.

“While there are many practical resources around to help young people develop a variety of skills,
there is nothing that helps positively shift their confidence,” said Libby.
The BT Personal Skills Journey materials were used for the first time in a classroom setting at Wallace
Hall Academy, a 650-student secondary school in Thornhill, near Dumfries in Scotland.

“I have enjoyed using it,” said learning leader Sharon McLean. “The pupils were willing to participate
in the lessons. They enjoyed what we were doing. You could see personal growth within the
individuals. For example, one of the boys was using the public speaking knowledge in a role outside
of school and you could tell that he was developing his confidence and working on his eye contact.”

or Libby Hammond, a key ingredient in the success of the materials has been the fact that it was
motivated by an authentic passion for educational improvement:

“The drive that BT has stems from a genuine concern to bring about positive cultural shift,” she said.
“There’s a genuine desire to create a better society for young people, and to improve their personal
chances of success. I think this would be a hugely attractive proposition for all schools.”

On track for a sustainable Games

London 2012 promises to be the first Olympic and Paralympic Games to put the environment and
society at the heart of the Games. Here’s why...

When it comes to sustainability, London 2012 presents its own unique challenges. Whilst the
communications infrastructure must support millions of visitors during the Games, it must also have
a long life post-Games and continue to contribute to London’s future.

Converged design

For the first time at a summer Games, the communications solution for London 2012 is a single Cisco
converged network managed by BT. Rather than installing separate networks for voice and data
traffic, BT has implemented multiple virtualised services delivered across a common physical core
communications infrastructure.

The infrastructure will support 80,000 connections across an estimated 94 Olympic and Paralympic
Games competition and non-competition venues. It will carry fixed and mobile telephony, Games
applications, community area television and wireless internet access.

Apartments in the athletes’ village on the Olympic Park will be connected via fibre to the premises,
making them early beneficiaries of superfast BT broadband.

Minimising waste

Services installed for the London 2012 Games will become part of the national BT infrastructure after
the Games. Next generation fibre access in east London, Weymouth, and other Games venues will
become a valuable economic legacy for the benefit of local businesses and communities.
And in line with the zero waste to landfill commitment made by the London 2012 bid, BT will retain
all equipment packaging for re-use at the end of the Games. Any remaining waste packaging will be
recycled where possible.

Climate change pioneer

BT is also a pioneer in understanding the carbon footprint of complex communication solutions. It’s
developed a unique methodology to assess the carbon footprint of London 2012 communications
services and to identify opportunities to reduce their impact on climate change.

In order to help minimise the carbon footprint of the communications services, BT and the London
Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) teams are using
conferencing services to reduce the need to travel to meetings.

Responsible business

As a London 2012 partner – BT is taking an active role in Get Set, the official London 2012 education
programme and has created three core programmes aimed at improving the communication skills of
young people and the coaching skills of the adults who look after them.

These programmes are focused on promoting diversity and social inclusion through collaboration –
using the appeal and excitement of the Games to unlock talent and encourage better
communication amongst children and teenagers.

By doing what it does best – bringing people together using communications – BT is on track to fulfil
its ambition to leave a lasting, sustainable legacy beyond the London 2012 Games.

David Stubbs, head of sustainability for LOCOG, concludes: “As a sustainability partner BT has
demonstrated clear leadership in supporting our groundbreaking work to develop a carbon
footprinting methodology for the Games, building this into a practical tool to help minimise its
sector’s impact on climate change. It is also leaving a legacy of community benefits through its
London 2012 education programmes.”

Inspiring young minds for a better future

BT’s partnership with UNICEF has helped thousands of children around the world

In 2007, BT formed a three year £1.5 million partnership with UNICEF to improve education and
access to technology for disadvantaged children. The programme – Inspiring Young Minds – has
helped tens of thousands of young people in some of the most disadvantaged parts South Africa,
Brazil and China.

Key to its success was a desire to ensure that this initiative should have a lasting impact on the
children and schools taking part. To meet that goal, part of the work focused on renovating buildings
to ensure that both children and staff were able to work in the right environment. Only once this
work was done was it possible to install the IT equipment needed to develop young talent.
Of course, new classrooms and shiny new equipment may look impressive, but they are of no use if
no one knows how to use it. That’s why the third part of the project involved training teachers to
ensure they had the leadership and ICT skills to get the very best out of the children.

“Through our relationship with UNICEF we have sought to help kick-start wider and more sustainable
development for even greater impact,” said Beth Courtier, community investment programme
manager at BT.

“Together we are bringing education and communications skills to children – as well as improving
access to computers, technology, and the internet.”

Paying dividends

And it’s an approach that has paid dividends. In South Africa, for example, the partnership began
work in rural and semi-rural areas in the provinces of Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, two of South
Africa’s most economically disadvantaged areas.

In China, BT and UNICEF worked with the Chinese Ministry of Education to improve educational
standards in 40 schools in the provinces of Qinghai, Ningxia, Yunnan, and Jiangxi. As part of the
initiative teachers received additional training while schools were kitted out with some of the latest
ICT equipment.

“The BT project has made a significant difference as the forty BT supported schools are in villages
that lack information and communication technology equipment and trained teachers,” said Dale
Rutstein, chief of communication and private sector partnerships, UNICEF China.

“The BT project is helping to go much further into the most vulnerable areas and reach the children
who have the poorest quality educational services.”

Developing skills

Elsewhere in Brazil, the Inspiring Young Minds partnership went beyond improving building and
installing new technology. Work was extended to help 10,000 teenagers develop technology and
communication skills across ten schools in five of Brazil’s largest cities.

“We are very proud of what our corporate partnership with BT achieved,” said Verity Rowles at
UNICEF UK. “It is an organisation that shares our commitment to children and their rights and BT
employees right across the globe have shown a huge amount of enthusiasm for the programme with
substantial additional local fundraising and support during the three-year partnership. BT’s help has
been invaluable.”