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 launched the BT Group Manifesto, which sets out how we’re accelerating growth through technology that’s responsible, inclusive and sustainable.

In 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 build a diverse digital talent pipeline.

  • New technology must earn trust and transform life for the better.

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

    For Good

    Accountable

    Fair

    Open

    We want to make sure our products and services are used for good. We focus on protecting privacy and free expression and helping to prevent online harms. We support the Global Network Initiative (GNI) Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy. 

    We completed a human rights impact assessment of WI-FI controls to help us identify, understand and assess the risks of the product.

    We conducted user research to understand how our responsible tech principles could build trust and differentiate us.

    We strive to only buy products and services from responsible companies – suppliers are required to meet our standards, and we monitor risks and compliance through assessments and audits.

    We reviewed human rights risks in our supply chain, to better understand these risks and identify any gaps in our policies and processes.

    We carried on doing due diligence on our direct tier 1 manufacturing supply chain (visit bt.com/modernslavery for more).

    Through our sales due diligence process, we work to make sure that our customers use our products and services in a way that benefits people and minimises harms.

    We enhanced sales due diligence in Business by adding checks for negative media coverage. This helps us assess any potential human rights risks through the life of a customer’s contract.

  • The future of tech must be inclusive and diverse for everyone to benefit.

    We’re encouraging more inclusive thinking through understanding barriers to inclusion and taking action to make sure all our people can be their best at work. Our Manifesto has bold targets for inclusion and diversity. While we’re making progress in ethnic minority representation, there’s much more to do in other areas. 

    Read more about our equity, inclusion and diversity work

    Building on our digital skills resources and partnerships, we’ve reached a total of 23 million people in the UK with digital skills support since FY15. We’re aiming to reach 25 million by the end of March 2026.

    0 m

    This year, we’ve reached a further 3.7 million people with help to improve their digital skills – from small businesses with our free digital skills programme, jobseekers through the Avado FastFutures programme, 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.

    0 m

    We’ve reached more than 14 million UK homes and businesses (including 3.9 million in rural locations) with ultrafast full fibre broadband, and we continue to help more low-income households get online through the BT Home Essentials social tariff, Openreach’s Connect the Unconnected offer and through EE basics for discounted mobile.

    0 %

    We've maintained the UK’s largest and fastest 4G mobile network, and continued the rollout of 5G that now reaches 75% of the population in the UK.

  • Technology must accelerate our journey to net zero emissions and a circular world.

    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

    We’ve cut our carbon emissions intensity by 61% since FY172, by introducing more electric vehicles to our fleet, decarbonising our building estate and through improvements in energy consumption and efficiency.

    0 %

    Reduction in the carbon intensity of our operations (against our 87% target by the end of March 2031).

    0 %

    Supply chain emissions reduction achieved (against our 42% target by the end of March 2031).

    We’re building towards a circular business by the end of March 2030 and a circular tech ecosystem by the end of March 2040, while protecting nature and biodiversity.

    0 m

    This year, consumers returned 2.4 million home hubs and set-top boxes – 71% of these were refurbished for reuse.

    0

    We collected 166,000 mobile devices through consumer and business trade-in schemes, all of which were reused or recycled.

    0 %

    We recovered, reused or recycled 90.4% of the waste produced from our operations worldwide – and 92% in the UK.

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

    There's huge potential to use our networks, products and services to help customers cut their own emissions – for example through decarbonising the grid and improving our products’ energy efficiency.

    We’ve helped customers avoid over 1.5 million tonnes of carbon, mainly through full fibre broadband reducing personal or work-related travel. 

    We’ve expanded our real-time energy and carbon dashboards for larger business customers to help them estimate their network’s carbon footprint and start to drive emissions reductions. 

    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.
    2Target approved by the Science Based Targets initiative as in line with 1.5°C climate pathway. Target is to reduce the carbon intensity of our operations by 87% since FY17 by the end of March 2031  (scopes 1 and 2 worldwide emissions tonnes CO2e per £m value added).

The BT Group Manifesto is taking us towards a bright sustainable future through technology.

Download

BT Group Manifesto
BT Group Manifesto

  • BT Group Manifesto

    This has been optimised for people with disabilities who use assistive technology.

    pdf - 3.36 MB

Watch the BT Group Manifesto launch event replay