Climate Leadership Award: Proximus among the world’s greenest companies
Our climate is changing, resulting in more extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels. This is mainly due to the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ which cause global warming. Proximus wants to play an active role in the fight against climate change and therefore aims to become a climate neutral company in 2016.
Proximus is the only Belgian company to receive the Climate Leadership Award
On 4 November, Proximus CEO Dominique Leroy received the CDP Climate Leadership Award in Paris, in recognition of Proximus' initiatives in the field of sustainable enterprise.
CDP is a non-profit organization which every year, on the instructions of the largest institutional investors, compares the performance of listed companies in the field of climate mitigation. More than 2,000 listed companies worldwide were included and ranked in the survey according to CDP's rating method. Companies can obtain a score ranging from E, the lowest, to A, the highest.
Along with 112 other listed companies from around the world, Proximus has achieved a position on the Climate "A" list of CDP – for the third year in a row. Proximus is the only Belgian company and one of seven telecom companies worldwide among the top 5% businesses to be awarded an A score for climate performance.
It gives me great satisfaction to receive the Climate Leadership Award. It is international recognition of Proximus' efforts to contribute towards a sustainable world. The fact that Proximus is the only company in Belgium to receive this prize highlights our leading position in the field of sustainability.
Since 2014, Proximus has also been listed on the FTSE4Good Index Series (www.ftse.com) for its investments in sustainable development. FTSE4Good is a stock market index set up to promote investment in companies that score well on environmental, social, and governance practices.
Ensuring a green future for future generations
Sustainability forms an integral part of Proximus' strategy and the way the company does business. Over the past seven years, Proximus has reduced its CO₂ emissions by 68%. The next step is to become a climate neutral company by the end of 2016.
Proximus has for years been working to reduce its impact on the environment, and uses 100% green electricity. The company invests in energy-efficient networks and buildings, and built the first data center in Belgium in 2012 with an advanced ecological cooling technique. Proximus is also committed to developing its green vehicle fleet, and encourages its employees to use public transport through a mobility budget.
In addition, Proximus makes every effort to offer products and solutions that help companies and consumers reduce their ecological footprint. For example, thanks to the recently launched LoRa network, companies can connect objects with the Internet in an efficient, energy-saving way. This allows a city to offer parking spaces with sensors, so that drivers can be led to a free parking space using an app, and don't have to drive around looking for one. Furthermore, Proximus offers consumers amongst others energy-efficient decoders (the latest model consumes 50% less energy) and promotes electronic bills. The company also organizes recycling campaigns for old mobile phones. To this day, we’ve educated more than 170,000 kids in more than 700 schools who recycled more than 85.000 phones.
Dominique Leroy, CEO of Proximus:
Global warming is one of the major problems the world is facing today. Proximus wants to take responsibility by eliminating its negative impact on climate change to ensure a better future for the next generations. This is an issue I hold very dear and I consider it our social duty to take initiatives to make Proximus a green business that operates in a sustainable way.
