Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) to Buy 100% Electric Company Cars from 2023
Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile in the United States) is quite focused on taking climate action. That translates into a handful of core initiatives, including a plan to buy only 100% electric cars for its fleet starting in 2023.
Deutsche Telekom also plans to “double its energy efficiency gains by 2024” and achieve climate neutrality within its own business operations in 2025. It intends to achieve climate neutrality across its whole value chain by 2024.
Achieving climate neutrality by 2025 entails cutting its carbon emissions 95% compared to 2017 levels. “The company will work to neutralize the remainder by means of high-quality carbon capture projects.”
“Specific action is needed to achieve this, not just lofty goals,” said CEO Tim Höttges at Deutsche Telekom’s first Sustainability Day
Deutsche Telekom has already been at 100% green electricity since 2021 for its network use. However, it aims to get more and more of that green electricity from direct purchases or its own power plants. “The Group aims to cover 50 percent of its energy requirements in Europe as of 2025 using power purchase agreements (PPAs), supplemented by energy it produces itself. PPAs are direct supply agreements with providers of renewable energy, granting them the financial security to invest in their production facilities, in turn helping to support the continued expansion of renewable energies.”
While Scope 1 and 2 cover its own operations, and one would think those would cover the majority of a company’s emissions and carbon footprint, Deutsche Telekom is forthright in telling the world that it’s actually the Scope 3 emissions that are its huge challenge. These account for more than 90% of the company’s carbon footprint. “Scope 3 emissions present the biggest challenge,” Deutsche Telekom notes.
Interestingly, Deutsche Telekom even has goals for its customers! “Deutsche Telekom also wants to empower its customers to achieve climate neutrality,” the company states. Its goal is a 25% emissions cut per person by 2030 (compared to 2017) all across the value chain. Furthermore, “Deutsche Telekom is also striving to achieve a 100-percent circular economy for devices by 2030. The objective is to make the return, repair, and recycling of old devices a matter of course. Deutsche Telekom’s suppliers, too, are to achieve a fully circular economy for technologies, devices, and network technology by 2030.”
In addition to the climate and other environmental targets, Deutsche Telekom has diversity and equality targets as part of its sustainability initiatives. It aims to have 30% of upper management be women by 2025. At the highest level in the company, Deutsche Telekom is already at its target. “This figure has already been exceeded on the Board of Management, with Deutsche Telekom boasting the most diverse management team of all DAX-listed companies. Three of its eight Board of Management members are women. Three members hail from countries other than Germany. Women already occupy 50 percent of the seats on the Supervisory Board.”
Deutsche Telekom also has an anti-online bullying campaign, a “no hate speech” motto, and more. “Deutsche Telekom is there to help: whether with technical support at the outset of the pandemic, free SIM cards for Ukrainian refugees, or the rapid rebuilding of network infrastructure after flood disasters like the one in Germany’s Ahr valley,” Höttges says.
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Latest CleanTechnica.TV Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
