Swisscom aims to be climate neutral and reduce carbon emissions by one million tons by 2025, using new “Scope 4” climate strategy developed with Accenture

Accenture collaborated with Swisscom on a climate strategy to reduce the telecommunications company’s emissions and help its customers reduce their emissions by one million tons of carbon by 2025 — equal to 2% of Switzerland’s total carbon emissions.

Swisscom expects to achieve climate neutrality faster than planned with new sustainability goals for its corporate decision-making and product development processes. Accenture helped Swisscom integrate an emerging interpretation of an emissions type, known as Scope 4, that the company can integrate into its strategy to enable its customers to avoid or reduce emissions.

“We strive every day to be more ambitious with our sustainability commitments and generate more impact for our company, our people, our customers and the environment,” said Res Witschi, head of sustainable digitization, Swisscom. “With Accenture’s industry knowledge and decarbonization insights, we raised our climate target and continue to be a sustainability leader in the telco space.”

Accenture also helped Swisscom explore strategies for incorporating technologies within the emerging Scope 4 classification that can help further reduce carbon emissions from customers. These considerations include technology such as AI-driven analytics, cloud, and 5G and IoT to address faster and higher capacity data transmission, with remote management and control of connected devices.

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By addressing Scope 4 emissions, Swisscom is simultaneously addressing environmental concerns and its bottom line. In fact, research from Accenture found that companies with a higher sustainability performance — across environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators — have been shown to also perform better financially.

“Technology is a critical driver for improving sustainability, helping to accelerate transitions to net zero, build sustainable organizations, embrace responsible value chains, and provide sustainable choices for customers,” said Stephan Schneider, managing director, Accenture. “Swisscom is positively impacting the planet by combining technology solutions to enable a reduction across their emissions while also driving business value. The company can boost their business by offering customers a larger number of green products and services to choose from to reduce their emissions.”

For more information about how the communications industry can embrace and become effective stewards of sustainability, visit the Accenture report “Communications Service Providers’ Critical Role in the Race to Net Zero.”

Source: Accenture