Virgin Media Announces World’s First Along with Sustainability Performance Progress
Virgin Media has announced the first year results of its ‘Five in Five’ sustainability goals – the company’s pledge to do more good with digital while growing the business responsibly and sustainably. This will see Virgin Media deliver five key goals in five years (by 2020).
The ultrafast broadband provider has also launched a new 360° immersive video. This is a world’s first for corporate sustainability communications and gives viewers the opportunity to meet some of the people behind the company’s goals and jump into the future to see what Virgin Media is aiming to achieve by 2020.
Performance highlights for 2015 include:
- Increased percentage of women in senior roles to 32%, above European average
- Significant reduction of carbon footprint and reduced truck journeys
- Launched a Technology Innovation Forum to find solutions to challenges disabled people face
Goal 1: Nurture an engaged workforce which represents the diversity of our customers and communities.
Progress: In 2015 the percentage of women in senior roles increased to 32%, 2% more than in 2014. By 2018, Virgin Media aims to have 40% of senior roles occupied by women. Across the European telecoms industry, just 20% of top roles are held by women.
Goal 2: Grow our business without increasing our carbon footprint.
Progress: In 2015 Virgin Media reduced its absolute Scope 1 & 2 carbon footprint by 6.1%, its biggest reduction ever. The company achieved this through a wide-ranging programme of energy efficiency projects and a major reduction in truck journeys. Virgin Media has reduced truck journeys by more than 800,000, which equates to a reduction of over 2.3 million miles and is 300,000 journeys more than the original target for 2015.
These efficiency projects have enabled Virgin Media to increase the amount of data on its network by 45% while reducing the CO2e per terabyte of data by 35%.
Virgin Media was able to reduce its truck journeys as result of better route planning, increased fault diagnosis and an increase in ‘QuickStart’, which enables customers to self-install their services.
Goal 3: Create the opportunities for 100,000 small businesses to grow in the UK’s economy through digital.
Progress: Virgin Media Pioneers is an online community dedicated to inspiring, supporting and celebrating small business founders and entrepreneurs. Last year, Virgin Media revamped its Pioneers website to provide advice from leading small business experts, driving an increase in Pioneers to 9,280, a 14% increase on the year before. Virgin Media also ran bespoke digital skills training for 80 Pioneers, sharing best business practice.
The Company also ran the Virgin Media Accelerator powered by TechStars, a three month mentor-led accelerator programme for 10 innovative start-up companies.
Goal 4: Transform the lives of disadvantaged people in the UK through digital technology.
Progress: Since launching its two year partnership with Scope in 2015, Virgin Media has raised more than £130,000 through employee fundraising, donated over 1,720 bags of stock to Scope charity shops and launched a Technology Innovation Forum to find innovative solutions to the challenges disabled people face.
The Virgin Media funded ‘Connect Families’ initiative is being piloted in three locations to help the parents of disabled children share their experiences and support one another, building on the excellent face-to-face service Scope already provides.
The Company has also appointed nine employees as ‘Digital for Good Champions’ across the UK, with 25% of their time dedicated to supporting Scope.
Goal 5: Improve the sustainability performance of every new customer product.
Progress: Virgin Media created its first ever product scorecard to measure the environmental and social impacts of the Company’s products and ensure that sustainability criteria are incorporated into product design and development. Virgin Media will soon launch the scorecard results for its latest WiFi hub which will act as the baseline for future products that are tested with the product scorecard.
Brigitte Trafford, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Virgin Media, said:“In the past year, we’ve lowered our carbon footprint, supported small businesses and entrepreneurs, increased the number of women in senior roles and transformed the lives of disabled people with Scope. With our ‘five in five’ goals we’re now focused on doing more good with digital.”
To find out more about this partnership and Virgin Media’s Digital for Good strategy and its performance in 2015, go to virginmedia.com/sustainability or join in the conversation on Twitter at #VMSust
Media Contact:
Press Office
+44 (0)333 000 2900
