BT has published its Environmental Performance Report, highlighting areas of its business which affect the environment such as energy use, waste management and transport. For the first time the report is only available on the web – a green measure in itself.

BT highlights significant environmental achievements, including a 26% reduction in its commercial car fleet resulting in 30% less fuel use. The company increased recycling by almost 20% and recycled nearly a third of its total waste, reducing the amount sent to landfill by 5.6%. Surprisingly, given the length of the average phone bill these days, BT says it reduced the amount of paper bought by 13%.

BT achieved certification to ISO14001, the international environmental management system standard, at the end of last year and its energy efficiency programme has been accredited to the Energy Efficiency Accreditation scheme run by the National Energy Foundation since 1993.

Since BT set its current energy reduction target in 1997, the company's consumption of electricity has fallen by 3%, heating oil by 56% and gas by 10% per cent. BT says that since 1991, it has reduced energy consumption by over 23%, contributing to a 44% reduction in overall CO2 emissions, well ahead of the official global warming targets.

BT has produced an environmental transport and travel policy to help minimise the impact of its operations on the environment has been produced. Perhaps the most radical experiment is a trial in the City of London where an engineering unit has taken 19 of its 31 engineers out of their vans and they are now travelling by foot or bus to their appointments. Any tools and materials that are needed are delivered direct to the customer’s premises by a roving service vehicle. BT hopes to widen the trial area in the future.

Of course the company is an enthusiastic user of the services it promotes to its customers. In the last year approximately 1,250 videoconferences and 173,206 audioconference calls were made by BT employees.

Richard Byatt

To read the full Environmental Report go to www.bt.com/epr2000