Global Compact International Yearbook Ausgabe 2010

Best Practice
CSR Management
“Big changes start small” is the theme
of the campaign for the environment
and society, which focuses on presenting
Deutsche Telekom products and services
with which customers can act responsibly
and thus play an active role in backing
sustainable development. “This campaign
is not about clapping ourselves on the
back. We want to show that entrepreneurial
action, appropriate consumption
and sustainability can be meaningfully
combined,” commented Chairman of
the Management Board at Deutsche
Telekom, René Obermann, at the launch
of the long-term campaign, which will
be featuring in advertisements in print,
TV and online media.
The campaign focuses not on the
company itself but on its end consumers,
and is based on the following central
idea: All our customers can achieve far
more in total – if they are adequately
informed. After all, together, people
can make a bigger difference than
individually. The contribution that
one person makes individually compared
with what they can do as
part of a large group is visualized
at www.millionen-fangen-an.de
(millions of people commence). The
site currently presents the topics
of online billing, child protection
software, download portals and
cell phone returns. Online billing
can be used to illustrate the calculation
of one’s own individual
contribution and that of a whole
group of customers. The product
saves around three sheets of paper
per month for each customer, so
The tilt/shift effect supports the
campaign motto: “Big changes
start small” What is apparently a
miniature view (in actual fact it is all
real) makes it clear that big things
can be achieved in small steps.
that with only one million customers
the volume of paper saved would reach
a height of 240 meters – higher than
the 202-meter Trump Tower. More than
14 million Deutsche Telekom customers
already use the online billing service in
Germany alone, and more new users will
help to bring a major change in paper
consumption habits and will save the
environment.
More than 13 other topics that illustrate
the concept of ecological and social
sustainability are planned for the next
two years of the campaign. These will
include telephone and data conference
calls, smart metering, climate-neutral
and family-friendly phones and power
consumption of Deutsche Telekom,
where power in Germany has been supplied
completely from renewable energy
sources since 2008. The company will
also be calling on people to take action
from 2010, for example to return their
“This campaign is
not about clapping
ourselves on the
back. We want to show
that entrepreneurial
action, appropriate
consumption, and
sustainability can be
meaningfully
combined.”
René Obermann, CEO Deutsche Telekom
old cell phones for re-use or recycling.
Fully functional used handsets will be
sent to Africa or Asia and defective devices
dismantled in the recycling process.
The materials that are retrieved – more
than 80 percent of a cell phone is reusable
– could be made available to
the automotive supplier industry, for
instance, where they would help to
reduce the consumption of resources.
Furthermore the mentioned sustainability
campaign’s Internet platform
will be made increasingly interactive
for customers. All in all, there are many
points at which customers themselves
can take action.
A sustainability campaign is, however,
only feasible and credible if the
company running it itself embraces and
practices corporate social responsibility.
As a corporate group, Deutsche Telekom
has already pursued a policy of sustainable
corporate governance for many
years and has, for example, conducted
returns of old devices since the 1970s.
We initiated our commitment to climate
protection in 1995 and adopted own
climate protection targets the following
year. In the year 2000, we were one of
the founding members of the UN Global
Compact and, in 2003, adopted our
Social Charter to ensure that our
employees and suppliers comply
with ecological and social standards.
In 2007, we were commended
by WWF as the corporate group
best equipped for climate change
and, in September 2009, signed the
Copenhagen Communiqué of the
European Leaders Group on Climate
Change (EU CLG).
This year, it was only logical
for us to venture even further into
the public eye with sustainability
in order to rouse and activate
awareness for this important issue
and to join with our customers to
achieve far more than we would do
alone. The fact that many people
are already highly sensitized to this
issue is an important fundament for
moving forward. The changing and
growing demand among customers
for attractive and sustainable
products from responsible companies
offers a major opportunity to promote
products and business models that are not
only economically viable but, above all,
pave the way to a sustainable consumer
society. This is an objective that we want
to contribute to.
Global Compact International Yearbook 2010 115