Digital Day 2021: Proximus joins the "European Green Digital Coalition"
At the Digital Day 2021 held on March 19, several EU Member States made new commitments to strengthen their joint ambitions for a human-centred approach to digitalisation. These commitments address three domains, connectivity, start-ups and clean digital technologies, supporting the EU ambitions towards a more competitive, inclusive and green digital future.
Mobilising investments in clean digital technologies
In the context of the third domain, clean digital technologies, 26 Member States signed the Declaration on “A Green and Digital Transformation of the EU” to accelerate the use of green digital technologies for the benefit of the environment. Member States will work together to speed up the deployment and development of advanced digital technologies, such as 5G and 6G, fibre optics, high-performance computing and Internet of Things, as key solutions to achieve climate neutrality and drive the green and digital transitions in priority sectors such as energy, transport, manufacturing, agri-food and construction.
In addition, 26 ICT companies, including Proximus, joined the “European Green Digital Coalition”, committing to significantly reduce their carbon footprint and to become climate neutral. Solutions include investing in the development of more energy and material efficient digital technologies, working with relevant NGOs and expert organisations to measure and monitor the net environmental impact of green digital solutions and many more. Finally, they commit to co-create deployment guidelines of green digital solutions together with other industry leaders, in order to accelerate the transition to sustainability of sectors such as energy, transport, building and agriculture.
Proximus has set bold environmental ambitions
Since 2016, Proximus is CO₂ neutral for its own operations. Going forward, we have set the bold ambition to make a net positive contribution to a net zero planet and to become a truly circular company by 2030.
To achieve this, we embed sustainability in everything we do. We will reduce our direct and indirect emissions as much as possible. We are already CO₂ neutral for our own emissions through compensations. By 2030 we want our own emissions being reduced to zero, without any compensation. Apart from our own emissions, a big part of our environmental impact is linked to the CO₂ emissions indirectly generated by Proximus throughout our value chain. We aim for a 10% reduction by 2025 and a 50% reduction by 2040. But well beyond our own efforts, we will help our customers reduce their footprint through our products and services and keep financing emission absorption projects.
Interested in this topic?
- Discover how we act for a green society in our annual report 2020
- Read the full press release of the European Commission
