BT Group Case Study

Carbon mapping BT Group’s route to a net zero supply chain by 2041

Detailed and complete supply chain reporting from Small World Consulting enables BT Group to:

reduce supply chain emissions by 42% by March 2031 and work towards achieving net zero for its supply chain by March 2041,
achieve a 26% reduction in supply chain emissions since 2017,
target its influence over its global supply chain to the suppliers with the highest emissions,
help show the business and sustainability case for refurbishing products and setting circular economy targets,
provide customers with detailed carbon footprints of the specific products and services they use, gaining a competitive advantage.

Reading time: 6 mins

BT Group is the parent company of well-known brands EE, BT, PlusNet and Openreach and provides managed telecommunications, security and network, and IT infrastructure services to customers across 180 countries.

Small World Consulting has worked with BT Group since 2012, delivering industry-leading supply chain carbon accounting. We combine spend data, product life cycle data and supplier emissions data to provide complete and increasingly nuanced and realistic modelling of BT Group’s supply chain. Our carbon footprinting has allowed BT Group to confidently set ambitious science-based targets for carbon reduction, to drive change across their industry and to move towards a circular economy for their products.

For Matt Manning, Head of Circularity and Net Zero for BT Group, it’s crucial to have confidence in the data. “Any kind of data or numbers we put out there, we want them to be credible, accurate and stand up to scrutiny ” he says and adds that working with Small World Consulting means “we can confidently say that we've taken a really robust and thorough approach to this.”

“ The work and methodology applied by the Small World team is probably some of the most refined and rigorous in the corporate GHG reporting landscape.”

Matt Manning, Head of Circularity and Net Zero, BT Group.

To begin with, the Small World team uses a spend-based analysis to calculate the full carbon footprint of every pound spent by BT Group on different industry sectors in the economy. We do this using an environmentally extended input-output model (EEIO). This has the benefit of covering all the emissions up the supply chain, but - if used on its own - lacks specificity.

To get a more specific and accurate picture, we augment the spend-based assessment using product life cycle analyses (LCAs) and other supplier emissions data. LCAs have their own drawback of not covering the whole supply chain in the way that is possible with a spend-based assessment, so we look at what’s missing from each LCA, and fill that gap with estimates from the input-output model, combining or hybridising the two, to reach an emissions factor that best represents each specific product.

Learn how we combine life cycle analysis with our own spend-based emissions factors.

Our guide to spend-based carbon footprinting

Influencing the telecoms industry

BT Group has over 8000 suppliers. But the data from Small World Consulting has shown that just 150 of those suppliers and their supply chains account for 80% of BT Group’s upstream emissions.

“It really helps us to narrow down that conversation and focus on the ones that will have the biggest impact” explains BT Group’s Matt Manning, describing how his team press these top suppliers for better emissions data, for CDP disclosure (a global environmental disclosure system for corporate emissions) and high-quality product LCAs.

Having high-quality emission factors for individual products lets BT Group ask for carbon reductions with more specificity than it can with purely spend-based data. Matt explains “When we know the footprint of a product, we can ask 'How are you going to reduce that over the next 5-10 years as you develop versions 2, 3 and 4?'” This allows emissions reductions from suppliers to be more easily recognised and quantified in BT Group’s carbon footprint.

BT Group first received LCAs for Apple iPhones. They now receive LCAs for products from Apple, Samsung, Google and other suppliers. BT Group will be asking all their suppliers how they will reduce the emissions associated with each product. Each supplier’s supply chain emissions reductions can therefore feed through into BT Group’s own emissions assessment.

Circling back to procurement

Matt is working to make the emission factors that Small World produce visible to more than just the sustainability teams, so that this information can be part of purchasing decisions.

“Most of your data comes through your procurement team because you're looking at spend-based data. But if they never see the results of that data and make any business changes, they won’t understand the impact of their decisions and you’re unlikely to make any progress toward decarbonising,” Matt points out.

His team are now piloting working with some areas of procurement to show them the emissions intensity (carbon per pound spent) of different suppliers. The idea is that asking the question “What’s that going to contribute to BT Group’s footprint?” as part of key purchasing decisions will lead to more conversations and challenges to suppliers about reducing their emissions.

“ The work that Small World do has helped the internal narratives to demonstrate the benefit of our refurbing and repair activities. ”

Matt Manning, BT Group.

Data driving a circular economy

Matt’s team are also using carbon footprint data to support BT Group’s target of becoming a fully circular business.

“The work that Small World do has helped the internal narratives to demonstrate the benefit of our refurbing and repair activities,” says Matt. This year customers returned almost 2.6 million home hubs and set-top boxes and 71% of those were reused. Matt’s team can show the carbon emissions from the refurbishments compared to the higher emissions that would have resulted if all those products had been made brand new.

“The level of the data we get from Small World allows us to run those numbers and show the benefit,” explains Matt. “I've used the data to support the story for the team working on the big refurb projects.”

One of Matt’s next challenges is to look at how to attribute carbon emissions over the full life span of a phone or router that is made, used then refurbished and used again. “The accurate accounting of refurb devices is still a bit of a grey area,” he says, knowing he has the Small World team to turn to for help. “I'm sure Small World will have a view of the best and most accurate way to account for that, so we’re not over-egging it and greenwashing the benefit of refurb, and equally not under-egging the numbers.”

BT Group want to give their customers a carbon footprint for every GB of data they use and every phone call they make.

The footprint of a phone call

One of Matt’s aims for BT Group is to provide its customers with more detailed footprints for the products and services they buy. “For every GB of data, for every minute of a phone call, you’ll know what the carbon footprint is” he explains.

That will help its 1 million existing business customers to measure their carbon footprint more reliably and could help win new business. “There's a potential competitive advantage if we can provide that product-level data in a bid compared to others who could only attribute customer spend against the company’s total emissions,” says Matt, who sees sustainability criteria gaining more weight in bid decisions.

Big aims need Small World expertise

BT Group is aiming to be net zero for its operational emissions by March 2031, and targets being net zero for its supply chain and customer emissions by March 2041. It has targets to reduce the amount of operational waste to landfill to zero by 2030, by expanding its reuse and recycling programs. Matt knows that these big aims will all continue to rely on the expertise of the team at Small World and the rigorous, granular data they produce. “I’ll keep popping up with queries and questions” he smiles, “but I’m sure we’re in safe hands.”