Tackling carbon emissions
Vodafone is committed to achieving net zero emissions from our own operations by 2028 in Europe, by 2035 in Africa, and across our value chain by 2040.
Digital connectivity has great potential to accelerate emissions reduction and address the impacts of the climate crisis. According to the World Economic Forum, digital solutions are estimated to have the potential to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20% by 2030.
We believe technology is key to the next era of industrial growth - building a healthy and competitive economy that is cleaner, less wasteful, more renewable and more sustainable. By providing technology and connectivity, Vodafone is enabling and empowering others to reduce the emissions that contribute to climate change, protect nature, use natural resources more efficiently and waste less.
2028
Net zero operations in Europe
2035
Net zero operations in Africa
2040
Net zero across our global value chain
Progress
84%
reduction in our own operations emissions since 2020
Our path to net zero
Setting ambitious goals is not enough. We must plan and execute actions to achieve them. Vodafone’s first published climate transition plan sets us on the pathway to net zero. It outlines our objectives, strategy and governance for reducing emissions over a three year period in line with our climate targets and how we plan to manage our climate-related risks and opportunities to build climate resilience into our business.
Achieving net zero in our operations
As demand for digital connectivity grows, so too does the need to optimise energy efficiency and transition from fossil fuels to renewables. At Vodafone, the biggest driver of our operational emissions (referred to as ‘Scope 1 & 2’) is the burning of fossil fuels to generate the energy need to run our networks.
We strive to reduce these emissions through a continued focus on driving energy efficiency across our mobile and fixed-line networks, phasing out the use of fossil fuels and increasing renewable sources of energy for both our stationary equipment and vehicle fleet. We also carry out proof of concepts to test innovative solutions and technologies with the aim to help us transition towards a fully renewable network.
Working with our partners towards net zero across our value chain
As a service provider, 90% of our emissions are generated through activities further in our value chain (referred to as ‘Scope 3’). These emissions are more challenging to reduce as they fall outside our direct control as they originate from the production of goods and services that we buy (upstream emissions), the use of our products or services by our customers (downstream emissions) and the activities that we finance through our investments.
Although these activities are not within Vodafone’s direct operational control, we recognise that they are essential to our business model and that we play a role (as a customer, supplier and investor) in influencing our value chain partners to reduce their emissions.
We strive to drive emission reductions across our value chain through supplier engagement, partnerships within the telco industry and the introduction of sustainable procurement practices.
We also encourage our customers to make lower-carbon choices by offering services that encourage circular practices, and work to help our customers tackle their emissions by reducing the lifecycle carbon footprint of the digital technology products and services we provide to them
Building climate resilience into our strategy
We recognise that both physical changes to the climate and the transition to a lower carbon economy pose risks and opportunities for our business. As a fixed and mobile network operator, we have a large number of assets and infrastructure spread over a wide geographical area in all of the markets in which we operate. This means that our business is exposed to climate change impacts and transition risks across Europe and Africa.
We manage climate-related physical risk associated with our assets and infrastructure by building and strengthening resilience into the key stages of each asset’s life cycle, from acquisition to maintenance, and cover climate adaptation as well as damage response. Additionally, we believe that decarbonising our business model and improving energy efficiency will help to minimise our exposure to transition risks. Find out more about how we progressed in these initiatives below, and about our climate risks here.
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