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

BT 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 low carbon 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.

Last year, we 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 a low carbon society.

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 by 2030, and a circular tech and telco ecosystem by 2040, while supporting nature and biodiversity.

Accelerating progress towards net zero

On our way to net zero

0 %

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

0

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 networks, buildings and fleet

Reducing carbon emissions across our value chain

Helping customers cut carbon emissions

Becoming a more circular business while supporting nature and biodiversity

Decarbonising our networks, buildings and fleet

We cut our global energy consumption by around
226 GWh in FY26 – a 9% reduction from FY25

Our Climate Transition Plan

Improving our networks' energy efficiency – which accounts for over 92% of our total energy consumption – is one of our biggest priorities. This year, we cut our global energy consumption by 226 GWh – a 9% drop on FY25 – via continuing rationalisation and modernisation our networks and buildings.

We’ve supported growth in the supply of renewables in the grid through several long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). PPAs met 34% of our UK electricity demand this year. We’re also continuing to explore opportunities to self-generate electricity across our estate.

We’re improving our network’s energy efficiency (which accounts for 92% of our total energy consumption) through our full fibre build program. Energy usage in our networks was down 6% this year. Fibre uses less energy than legacy networks, is more reliable and better able to withstand climate change risks, like flooding and higher temperatures. We continue to decarbonise our buildings through reductions in gas use and electrification of our heating. Gas consumption reduced by 38% in FY26 compared to last year.

Switching our vehicle fleet to electric

Our transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is helping to reduce air pollutants that emit from combustion engines and reducing our carbon emissions. We continue to roll out EVs across our fleet; this year we increased the total to over 7,900, which now represents 29% of our total fleet. We’ve announced a partnership with myenergi, to support the rollout of EV chargers at engineers’ homes, to ensure sufficient charging infrastructure for our EV fleet. Partnerships with First Group and Sainsbury’s Smart Charge are also supporting our engineers access affordable, rapid charging across the UK. We’ve also updated our company car policy, so that all new business-needs car orders are now EV only.

BT and Openreach electric vans
BT and Openreach electric vans

Reducing carbon emissions across our value chain

We’ve cut supply chain emissions by 33% 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’re driving transparent climate disclosures in our supply base by prioritising our top carbon-emitting suppliers and requesting their participation in CDP reporting. Today, suppliers representing more than 63% of our supply chain emissions are reporting to CDP.

This year, we updated our supplier environmental standard, that encourages suppliers to commit to decreasing carbon emissions. We’re applying a mandatory minimum weighting for environmental and social sustainability criteria in all competitive sourcing events.

We continue to collaborate with other Joint Alliance for CSR (JAC) members to address Scope 3 supply chain emissions via carbon reduction and supplier engagement programs

Helping customers cut carbon

There’s huge potential for the use of BT’s 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 10m tonnes of carbon since 2021. Associated revenues from carbon-saving products amounted to £6.5 billion this year. 

Becoming a circular business,
while supporting nature and biodiversity

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:

  • We offer a free service for customers to return our routers and set-top boxes.
  • This year we collected nearly 136,000 mobile devices through our trade-in services. 91% of them went for reuse and a second life. The rest we recycled responsibly.
  • Our mobile devices take-back rate is 5.4%. We want to increase this to at least 20% by 2030.
  • The return rate for customer premise equipment was 67% in 2025, with nearly 3.4 million hubs and set-top boxes returned. We refurbished and reused 59% of them and recycled the rest.
  • Our Business unit introduced enhanced trade-in offers, providing our business customers with discounts on the new iPhone 17 when they trade in old devices.

Our services are also helping extend the life of devices:

  • Our EE repair service (approved by Apple, Samsung and Google) fixed nearly 53,000 devices this year.
  • EE launched a range of refurbished Apple and Samsung smartphones on pay-monthly Flex Pay plans.

We continued our approach to sustainable design by using 95% recycled plastic in the casing of our newest hub, the Smart Hub 3.5, and plastic-free and fully recyclable packaging. 

Openreach rolled out its first “green” ONT (Optical Network Terminator), which is made from 85% recycled plastic, avoiding 100 tonnes of virgin plastic, along with 30% less cardboard packaging and 40% more units per shipment.

Networks and estate

Consolidating our estate and modernising our networks generated over 100 ktonnes of operational waste globally this year. Our UK and global recycling, reuse and recovery rates are at 86%. We continued recovering old or end-of-life network kit to reuse or recycle. This year, we recovered 2,300 tonnes of equipment with over 4,800 items reused within our own or third party networks. As more customers switch to full fibre, we’re extracting more old copper cable. This year we recycled over 9,200 tonnes of the metal – vital for the green transition – back into the global supply chain.

0 m

home hubs and set-top boxes returned                  

0

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

As part of our focus on conservation, BT has partnered with The Wildlife Trust. Through our partnership we are investing in nature restoration through our public sector contracts and employee volunteering.

Openreach continues to work with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in a Business Conservation Partnership, to plan and implement nature-positive actions as part of the full fibre build program. The partnership has enabled engineers to use their volunteering time to work with the RSPB installing nest boxes on residents’ properties in local communities. 87 nest boxes have been installed so far for red-listed species, including pipistrelle bats, swifts, sparrows and house martins. We've also installed 88 swift nesting boxes across our sites to date, and planted a number of wildflower meadows across our estate. 

BT Group partners with Gavin & Stacey star to put digital training ‘on track’

05 March 2026

TV legend Johnny Ball urges older generations to ‘reclaim the day’

11 December 2025

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

09 January 2025

BT helps customers keep a lid on AI carbon emissions

31 October 2024

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

23 October 2024

Follow us for the latest BT news

RSS icon
X icon
Linkedin icon

More on Responsible business

Responsible business

Digital inclusion

Governance