We are offering our customers more and more products and services that are sustainability oriented. The basis for them is Deutsche Telekom’s “green network”, which is 100 percent powered by renewable energies. We use the #GoodMagenta and #GreenMagenta labels to highlight products and services that are especially sustainable. Also, in 2021, and in cooperation with other network operators, we introduced the Eco Rating labelling system, which we use to highlight cell phones that are eco-friendly. In 2022, we further expanded our range of eco-friendly products and services. Now, along with more eco-friendly models of routers, media receivers and phones (the Fairphone), we also offer more eco-friendly accessories. In addition, we offer sustainability-oriented services, such as rental plans, and refurbishment and recycling of smartphones and fixed-network devices.
The first eco-friendly 5G smartphone In 2021, and in the framework of our cooperation with Fairphone, a manufacturer based in the Netherlands, we supported the launch of the first eco-friendly 5G smartphone, in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The phone in question, the Fairphone 4, is currently the only smartphone to have received the German “Blue Angel” ecolabel. The phone has a modular design that is resource-efficient and reduces emissions. As of the year under review, our employees are free to order the new Fairphone as a workplace phone, since it has been certified in keeping with Google’s Android Enterprise Recommended (AER) initiative. By participating in this program, Fairphone is working to offer companies the best-possible, most-secure devices for mobile work settings. To date, about 11 percent of our new trainees have opted for the Fairphone 4.
Conserving resources by refurbishing smartphones In 2021, we added the cell-phone purchase, “ReUse MyMobile” and “Insure MyMobile” services to our portfolio of sustainable products and services. Under the cell-phone purchase scheme (only available in German), we buy used smartphones – including smartphones from both Deutsche Telekom and other providers. We provide guaranteed, certified erasure of all data. We refurbish, and make available for reuse, nearly all of the devices we purchase. And in our refurbishments, we try to avoid component replacements wherever possible. Instead of replacing defective components, we refurbish them with innovative procedures that minimize resources consumption. For example, we restore displays with a new, innovative deep-polish method that produces long-lasting results. Devices that simply cannot be reused are properly recycled. Prior to being sold, each refurbished device undergoes a total of 65 tests, covering the same functional standards that are applied to new devices. Then the devices are sustainably and securely packaged – and returned into circulation.
We offer refurbished devices, along with a 24-month guarantee, for sale via our “ReUse MyMobile” (only available in German) service – and thereby extend the devices’ life cycles and help save resources. Our newly designed packaging, including the environmentally friendly labels and overprinting we use, is biodegradable. The inner packaging for our products is sealed and secure, with filmless, transparent viewing windows that make it easy for customers to inspect the products in our stores.
Our new “Insure MyMobile” cell phone insurance, including Apple Care service, is available both for new devices and for refurbished smartphones. This also helps to extend devices’ average lifetimes, since insured devices are repaired free of charge if they are damaged. By purchasing one of our “ReUse MyMobile” smartphones, customers can save up to 200 euros in comparison to the purchase of a new phone. These products receive our #GreenMagenta label.
Similar efforts at our national companies (NatCos) Our national companies also offer ecologically sustainable products and services. For example, Magenta Telekom in Austria now offers refurbished cell phones under the #GreenMagenta “Magenta Refurbished” label, which it added to its portfolio in 2021. At our national companies in Romania and the Czech Republic, customers can rent routers and modems, and rental devices are made available for reuse when they are replaced. In Hungary, our customers may choose the “ExtraNet Green 1 GB” data-expansion option. With its own solar power plants, Magyar Telekom generates the green power needed for data transmission under the “ExtraNet Green 1 GB” option – enough green power to transport about 450 000 gigabytes of data per year.
At nearly all of our European national companies, we offer rental plans for various fixed-network devices, and devices exchanged within such programs can often be reused or refurbished for further use. On a European-wide basis, this has led to a return rate of over 55 percent. Also, at all of our national companies, customers have the option of returning their used smartphones to us, or of selling them to us for a fair price. The devices that we accept through such channels are professionally refurbished for resale, or are recycled. Such services have led to return rates of up to 24 percent, depending on the country involved.
Offers for business customers We also want to help our business customers meet their sustainability goals and implement relevant regulatory requirements – such as those applying under the EU Green Deal. To date, more than twelve customer solutions of T-Systems International and Telekom Deutschlandhave already earned our #GreenMagenta label, and more solutions continue to be added to this group. Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) is a good example. A-CDM, a resource for airport workforces, facilitates information-sharing and collaboration, and thereby helps make airport operations more efficient. This, in turn, enhances punctuality, and, by improving predictability, it also reduces fuel consumption and the related emissions. Telekom Deutschland’s cell-phone purchase portal (Handyankaufsportal) for business customers is another successful service that has earned the #GreenMagenta label. Also, in cooperation with the “everphone” mobile device service, we offer our business customers “Device as a Service” plans. Under these plans, we assume complete responsibility for management of devices – including rentals, pickup of devices from employees, replacements, expert repairs of defective devices, and certified recycling and waste management. Numerous other Deutsche Telekom offers, and numerous products of other manufacturers, help our customers reduce their carbon footprints. This is the case, for example, with the many home-office solutions we offer – and especially with our various videoconferencing and web-conferencing systems.
With our Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, we are now helping many of our business customers to make their processes more resource-efficient and energy-efficient and to establish innovative, sustainable business models. Companies seeking to use IoT solutions often find themselves having to deal with lengthy proof-of-concept trials, and costly test cycles, just to find out whether their products offer the desired performance and battery life. There is no guarantee of success, given that there are many sources of error and a multitude of design and provisioning aspects that can influence the outcomes. Our “IoT Solution Optimizer” service facilitates modeling of many different types of projects, for many different types of scenarios and components. It produces precise results within minutes. With this service, companies can significantly reduce their development costs, while still ensuring that their newly fielded IoT solutions will pay off in the long term.
Measuring progress with key performance indicators We use various key performance indicators to measure our progress in expanding our range of sustainable products. For example, we track the numbers of sustainable and refurbished devices in our mobile and fixed-network communications segments. We also specify the ratio of more sustainable products sold and leased to total devices sold and leased. In 2022, more than 39 percent of the fixed-network devices sold or rented throughout the Group were eco-friendly.
Eco-friendly products of the Deutsche Telekom Group
We are offering our customers more and more products and services that are sustainability oriented. The basis for them is Deutsche Telekom’s “green network”, which is 100 percent powered by renewable energies. We use the #GoodMagenta and #GreenMagenta labels to highlight products and services that are especially sustainable. Also, in 2021, and in cooperation with other network operators, we introduced the Eco Rating labelling system, which we use to highlight cell phones that are eco-friendly. In 2022, we further expanded our range of eco-friendly products and services. Now, along with more eco-friendly models of routers, media receivers and phones (the Fairphone), we also offer more eco-friendly accessories. In addition, we offer sustainability-oriented services, such as rental plans, and refurbishment and recycling of smartphones and fixed-network devices.
The first eco-friendly 5G smartphone
In 2021, and in the framework of our cooperation with Fairphone, a manufacturer based in the Netherlands, we supported the launch of the first eco-friendly 5G smartphone, in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The phone in question, the Fairphone 4, is currently the only smartphone to have received the German “Blue Angel” ecolabel. The phone has a modular design that is resource-efficient and reduces emissions. As of the year under review, our employees are free to order the new Fairphone as a workplace phone, since it has been certified in keeping with Google’s Android Enterprise Recommended (AER) initiative. By participating in this program, Fairphone is working to offer companies the best-possible, most-secure devices for mobile work settings. To date, about 11 percent of our new trainees have opted for the Fairphone 4.
Conserving resources by refurbishing smartphones
In 2021, we added the cell-phone purchase, “ReUse MyMobile” and “Insure MyMobile” services to our portfolio of sustainable products and services. Under the cell-phone purchase scheme (only available in German), we buy used smartphones – including smartphones from both Deutsche Telekom and other providers. We provide guaranteed, certified erasure of all data. We refurbish, and make available for reuse, nearly all of the devices we purchase. And in our refurbishments, we try to avoid component replacements wherever possible. Instead of replacing defective components, we refurbish them with innovative procedures that minimize resources consumption. For example, we restore displays with a new, innovative deep-polish method that produces long-lasting results. Devices that simply cannot be reused are properly recycled. Prior to being sold, each refurbished device undergoes a total of 65 tests, covering the same functional standards that are applied to new devices. Then the devices are sustainably and securely packaged – and returned into circulation.
We offer refurbished devices, along with a 24-month guarantee, for sale via our “ReUse MyMobile” (only available in German) service – and thereby extend the devices’ life cycles and help save resources. Our newly designed packaging, including the environmentally friendly labels and overprinting we use, is biodegradable. The inner packaging for our products is sealed and secure, with filmless, transparent viewing windows that make it easy for customers to inspect the products in our stores.
Our new “Insure MyMobile” cell phone insurance, including Apple Care service, is available both for new devices and for refurbished smartphones. This also helps to extend devices’ average lifetimes, since insured devices are repaired free of charge if they are damaged. By purchasing one of our “ReUse MyMobile” smartphones, customers can save up to 200 euros in comparison to the purchase of a new phone. These products receive our #GreenMagenta label.
Similar efforts at our national companies (NatCos)
Our national companies also offer ecologically sustainable products and services. For example, Magenta Telekom in Austria now offers refurbished cell phones under the #GreenMagenta “Magenta Refurbished” label, which it added to its portfolio in 2021. At our national companies in Romania and the Czech Republic, customers can rent routers and modems, and rental devices are made available for reuse when they are replaced. In Hungary, our customers may choose the “ExtraNet Green 1 GB” data-expansion option. With its own solar power plants, Magyar Telekom generates the green power needed for data transmission under the “ExtraNet Green 1 GB” option – enough green power to transport about 450 000 gigabytes of data per year.
At nearly all of our European national companies, we offer rental plans for various fixed-network devices, and devices exchanged within such programs can often be reused or refurbished for further use. On a European-wide basis, this has led to a return rate of over 55 percent. Also, at all of our national companies, customers have the option of returning their used smartphones to us, or of selling them to us for a fair price. The devices that we accept through such channels are professionally refurbished for resale, or are recycled. Such services have led to return rates of up to 24 percent, depending on the country involved.
Offers for business customers
We also want to help our business customers meet their sustainability goals and implement relevant regulatory requirements – such as those applying under the EU Green Deal. To date, more than twelve customer solutions of T-Systems International and Telekom Deutschland have already earned our #GreenMagenta label, and more solutions continue to be added to this group. Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) is a good example. A-CDM, a resource for airport workforces, facilitates information-sharing and collaboration, and thereby helps make airport operations more efficient. This, in turn, enhances punctuality, and, by improving predictability, it also reduces fuel consumption and the related emissions. Telekom Deutschland’s cell-phone purchase portal (Handyankaufsportal) for business customers is another successful service that has earned the #GreenMagenta label. Also, in cooperation with the “everphone” mobile device service, we offer our business customers “Device as a Service” plans. Under these plans, we assume complete responsibility for management of devices – including rentals, pickup of devices from employees, replacements, expert repairs of defective devices, and certified recycling and waste management. Numerous other Deutsche Telekom offers, and numerous products of other manufacturers, help our customers reduce their carbon footprints. This is the case, for example, with the many home-office solutions we offer – and especially with our various videoconferencing and web-conferencing systems.
With our Internet of Things
(IoT) solutions, we are now helping many of our business customers to make their processes more resource-efficient and energy-efficient and to establish innovative, sustainable business models. Companies seeking to use IoT solutions often find themselves having to deal with lengthy proof-of-concept trials, and costly test cycles, just to find out whether their products offer the desired performance and battery life. There is no guarantee of success, given that there are many sources of error and a multitude of design and provisioning aspects that can influence the outcomes. Our “IoT Solution Optimizer” service facilitates modeling of many different types of projects, for many different types of scenarios and components. It produces precise results within minutes. With this service, companies can significantly reduce their development costs, while still ensuring that their newly fielded IoT solutions will pay off in the long term.
Measuring progress with key performance indicators
We use various key performance indicators to measure our progress in expanding our range of sustainable products. For example, we track the numbers of sustainable and refurbished devices in our mobile and fixed-network communications segments. We also specify the ratio of more sustainable products sold and leased to total devices sold and leased. In 2022, more than 39 percent of the fixed-network devices sold or rented throughout the Group were eco-friendly.
Eco-friendly products of the Deutsche Telekom Group
In addition, we record KPIs on the collection of devices for recycling purposes and on products with sustainable packaging.
Reporting against standardsGlobal Reporting Initiative (GRI)