Sustainability

Sustainability

Working towards becoming a net zero and circular business, supporting resilience for the nation

BT Group has been a leader on climate action for over 30 years. We’ve been tracking our carbon reductions since 1992 and were one of the first companies in the world to set a science-based target in 2008. We’re working hard to decarbonise our networks, buildings and fleet and are building towards a circular business.

The transition to a resilient net zero economy needs to happen much faster. We’re investing in full fibre broadband and 5G networks that will pave the way for lower-carbon ways of life and work. Our networks and solutions can help all our customers cut carbon too. Tech has enormous potential to make cities and factories smarter and manage homes more efficiently.

We’ve published our first Climate Transition Plan, setting out in detail the objectives, strategy and governance needed to help reduce our emissions, manage climate-related risks and support economy-wide transformation to net zero.

Net zero

We’re aiming to be net zero in our operations by the end of March 2031 – and for our full value chain by the end of March 2041. All our near term and net zero targets have been validated and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Circular economy

We’ll build towards a circular BT Group by 2030, and a circular tech and telco ecosystem by 2040, while supporting nature and biodiversity.

On our way to net zero

0 %

cut in operational carbon emissions since FY17 (against our updated aim, to deliver a 90% cut by the end of March 2031)

electric vehicles (EV) in our fleet

0 %

cut in supply chain* emissions since FY17 (towards our 42% target by the end of March 2031)

0 %

cut in full value chain emissions since FY17 (towards our 90% target by the end of March 2041)

* Scope 3 categories 1-8 as defined by the GHG Protocol

We’ll achieve our ambitious net zero targets by:

Decarbonising our buildings and networks

We cut our global energy consumption by around 100 GWh in FY25 – a 4% reduction from FY24

Improving our networks' energy efficiency – which accounts for over 85% of our total energy consumption – is one of our biggest priorities. Over the last eight years, we’ve cut our global energy consumption by 20%, achieved mainly through rationalising and upgrading our buildings and networks and reducing our consumption of electricity and gas. We’ve also supported growth in the supply of renewables in the grid through several long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). These long-term PPAs met 31% of our UK electricity demand this year.

We’re decarbonising our estate through our workplace transformation programme and consolidating hundreds of buildings to around 30. Our new and refurbished buildings are designed with environmental impact firmly in mind.

We’re building more energy-efficient fixed and mobile networks, while switching off our old ones. As well as saving energy, full fibre networks can better absorb the effects of physical climate change risks, like flooding and higher temperatures. That means fewer faults and fewer engineering visits.

Read about our Climate Transition Plan

Switching our vehicle fleet to electric

We have over 30,000 vehicles operating across our business. After emissions from consumed electricity, our fleet is our second biggest source of operational emissions (Scopes 1 and 2). We’re working hard and investing to convert the majority of this fleet to electric or zero-emission vehicles by the end of FY31 – where that's the best technical or economic solution. And where zero-emission vehicles aren't viable, we're pursuing other ultra-low emission solutions.

We now have over 5,500 electric vehicles (EVs) in our fleet, which represents 18% of our total fleet. At the end of 2024 we placed the largest ever UK commercial EV fleet order, of nearly 3,500 new EVs. When they're all delivered, we’ll have nearly 8,000 – one of the UK's largest EV fleets.

We’ve cut supply chain emissions by 25% since FY17, we’re aiming for a 42% cut by the end of March 2031. We’ll keep working with suppliers on cutting carbon.

We encourage our key suppliers to report to CDP to improve visibility and action on emissions. Today, suppliers presenting more than 65% of our supply chain emissions are reporting to CDP.

We continue to collaborate with major Openreach partners through a supplier engagement programme, supporting them via workshops and webinars, to promote carbon emission reporting, and ways to reduce their own emissions.

We collaborate with the 1.5°C Supply Chain Leaders initiative to drive climate action across global supply chains and support small and medium-sized enterprises through the SME Climate Hub.

There’s huge potential for the use of our networks, products and services to enable customers to cut their emissions – for example, through improving our products’ energy efficiency, and through customers use of technologies, like full fibre broadband, mobile solutions and cloud computing.

To show our progress in this area we report on our products’ cumulative enablement impact as we continue to help customers and society reach net zero. Overall, we’ve helped customers avoid more than 5.5m tonnes of carbon since 2021.

We’ve expanded our Carbon Network Dashboard to give business customers a better view of electricity consumption and carbon emissions and added extra business-to-business solutions to our carbon enablement methodology.

Developing a circular economy is a vital step in achieving a net zero economy

We want to build towards circular business by 2030 and a circular tech ecosystem by 2040.

Products and packaging

We encourage consumers to return products after use. In FY25, our customers returned more than 2.9 million home hubs and set-top boxes to us, we refurbished and reused 50% and recycled the rest. We also collected nearly 140,000 mobile devices through consumer and business trade-in schemes, we reused over 95% and recycled the rest. By 2030, we’re aiming to increase takeback rate for mobile devices to at least 20%, we are currently at around 5%.

To extend the lives of our customers’ devices, our EE repair service (approved by Apple, Samsung and Google) fixed over 57,000 devices in the last year.

We’ve launched the sale of refurbished devices, which have a lower carbon footprint than new and expanding the use of eSIMs, reducing the need to manufacture physical SIM cards.

0 m

home hubs and set-top boxes returned

140,000 mobile devices collected through consumer and business trade-in schemes

0 %

recycling, reuse and recovery rate for UK and Global operational waste

Supporting nature and biodiversity

Two women wearing florescent jackets in a rural location

At our sites, we track environmental risks including whether there are protected species on site and whether we have detected any invasive species. We also have a swift box programme to install swift boxes across our estate to increase the number of nest sites for the birds, which are on the UK’s Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern.

As part of our focus on conservation, BT Group has partnered with The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. We provide financial contributions to the charity and volunteering opportunities for colleagues.

Openreach has a Business Conservation Partnership with the RSPB, to make sure that it is better placed to implement nature positive actions as part of the overall fibre build programme.

We continued our fibre roll out to islands off the West Coast of Scotland while protecting the local habitats. In the isles of Mull, Tiree and Iona, Openreach planners have been working closely with landowners, NatureScot and RSPB in order to build safely near otter habitats and nesting sites for rare species.

Working towards becoming a net zero and circular business, supporting resilience for the nation

Net zero

Circular economy

Accelerating progress towards net zero

On our way to net zero

We’ll achieve our ambitious net zero targets by:

Decarbonising our networks, buildings and fleet

Cutting carbon emissions across our value chain

Helping suppliers and customers cut carbon emissions

Becoming a circular business

Decarbonising our buildings and networks

We cut our global energy consumption by around 100 GWh in FY25 – a 4% reduction from FY24

Switching our vehicle fleet to electric

Cutting carbon emissions across our value chain

Helping customers cut carbon

Becoming a circular business,
while supporting nature and biodiversity

Products and packaging

Supporting nature and biodiversity

Latest news

BT Group announces the UK’s largest ever EV fleet order

BT helps customers keep a lid on AI carbon emissions

BT Group switches on first self-powered mobile site energised by solar and wind

Carers say tech is crucial for people with dementia but they don’t know where to start

Follow us for the latest BT Group news