Accelerating growth through technology that is responsible, inclusive and sustainable

In nearly every aspect of life the pace of change is accelerating. Standing still isn’t an option. We can – and must - harness the pace of technology change for good. To survive, businesses must keep pace with change. But to really thrive, businesses must lead it but in the right way.  

That’s why we’re accelerating initiatives across our whole organisation to drive growth through technology which is responsible, inclusive, and sustainable.

In this, BT Group’s Manifesto you will find our own ambitious goals for change: our net zero carbon and circular economy pathways; our targets to help build our customers’ digital skills; our ambition to energise a more diverse digital talent movement. 

Now is the time to come together. Because only then can we gather momentum, aggregate action, and ensure that change is happening in the right way.

  • We aim to become the world’s most trusted connector of people, devices and machines. That’s a big ambition, but as a leading tech and tech enabler business, we know it’s not enough to minimise harms - we must connect for good.

    We’re expanding our responsible tech principles across our whole value chain, ensuring we develop, use, buy and sell technology in a way that benefits people and minimises harms.

    Smiley face
    For good
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    Accountable
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    Fair
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    Open

    We’re leveraging our responsible approach to build trust in new tech and make our solutions inclusive. This will help us differentiate our propositions and lead in future growth areas and innovation.

    £604 million

    We’ve spent £604m on research and development this year alone. Our new Digital unit will enable us to fast-track innovations in key areas including healthcare, AI and data.

    To build the technology for the future, we need talented people who understand the cutting-edge tech. That’s we’re investing to supercharge a digital talent movement that will future-proof the nation by engaging and inspiring people from diverse backgrounds to enter digital careers.

    Supercharging digital talent

    To kick off the movement, we partnered with Avado to provide mentoring support for a further 1,500 young people to help them develop digital business skills through FastFutures, a 6-12-week training and mentoring programme. We’ll also support 80 young people through Bootcamps designed to build advanced digital, data and AI skills without the need for a STEM degree.

  • We have a rich legacy of inclusion. But we know there’s still a lot to be done. We’ve set bold targets for diversity in our own business, backed by rapid action plans on ethnicity and disability.

    Creating a more inclusive digital landscape will help us drive productivity, innovation and growth for our business and for the UK.

    Building on our Digital Skills resources and partnerships, we’ve reached a total of 14.7 million with digital skills support since 2014/15. We’re aiming to reach 25 million by the end of March 2026. 

    4.6 million people

    This year, we’ve reached a further 4.6 million people with help to improve their digital skills – from small businesses and jobseekers through BT Group Accelerate Digital FastFutures to helping young people learn how to stay safe and be kind online with EE PhoneSmart, and uniting against online hate with EE Hope United.

    We’re working to develop the right digital infrastructure, so no-one gets left behind. We aim to reach 25 million homes and businesses, including hard-to-reach rural communities with access to strong, secure, ultrafast, full fibre broadband. We’ve already extended 5G coverage to half the UK population, and we’ve committed to reach 90% of the UK geography by 2028

    7.2 million

    We’ve reached more than 7.2 million UK homes and businesses with ultrafast full fibre broadband, and we continue to help more low-income households get online through the BT Home Essentials social tariff and Openreach’s Connect the Unconnected offer.

    50%

    We've maintained the UK’s largest and fastest 4G mobile network, and continued the rollout of 5G with even higher speeds, more reliable service and near-instant connections that now reaches 50% of the population in the UK.

    We’ve set some big ambitions to improve inclusion and diversity within our workforce.

    Our female talent development programmes, together with rapid actions plans on ethnicity and disability, will help us get here.

    Take a look at our Diversity and Inclusion Report  to find out more about the progress we’ve made and the work we still need to do. 

  • Climate action momentum has never been greater, but the world needs us to move faster. It’s time to take action on climate. Not tomorrow but today.

    We’ve already switched to renewable electricity – and now we’re pushing further by decarbonising our buildings, making them more energy efficient and building towards a circular BT Group.

    We’ve pledged to become a net zero emissions business by end of March 2031 for our own operations and by the end of March 2041 for our supply chain and customers emissions.1

    2031

    Reduce the carbon intensity of our operations by 87% by the end of March 2031, and cut supplier carbon emissions by 42% by 2031.

    100%

    We’re already using 100% renewable electricity worldwide.2

    We’re  building towards a circular business by the end of March 2030 and a circular tech ecosystem by the end of March 2040.

    1.35m

    This year, consumers returned 1.35m home hubs and set-top boxes – 46% of these were refurbished for reuse.

    98%

    We recycled waste generated from the fit out of our own new HQ building in London.

    97%

    We recovered or recycled the waste produced from our operations worldwide – and 99.4% in the UK.

    We’re well placed to help customers cut emissions through full fibre broadband, high performance 5G solutions, and growth technologies like cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT). 

    We’re working with the Carbon Trust to develop use cases to refine our definition of carbon reducing solutions and measure customer carbon savings so we can report progress towards our new target next year.

    60 million tonnes

    We’ll help customers avoid 60 million tonnes of CO2e by the end of March 2030. 

    1 Net zero target for operational emissions (scopes 1 and 2) by end of March 2031 and end to end emissions (scopes 1, 2 and 3) by end of March 2041.
    299.9% of the global electricity BT consumes is from renewable sources. The remaining 0.1% is where renewable electricity is not available in the market.

The BT Group Manifesto is taking us towards a bright sustainable future through technology.
The movement begins here. Join us.

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BT Group Manifesto
BT Group Manifesto

  • BT Group Manifesto

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Watch the BT Group Manifesto launch event replay