Corporate social responsibility

Our vision

We believe in delivering business results in a responsible way. We also believe in applying our technology and expertise in a way that benefits social and environmental issues.

Our strategy

Our CSR activity, led by the CSR Steering Group and chaired by Executive Committee member Richard Oosterom, remains focused on four key areas: Environment, Customers and Suppliers, People, and Community.

Our performance

Colt has been confirmed as a constituent of the FTSE4Good Index Series which recognises companies that meet globally recognised Environmental, Social and Governance standards. We were also awarded a "Gold" CSR rating by third-party analysts EcoVadis (2013: "Silver"). This is an above average rating for our industry.

Due to the energy-intensive nature of our business activities, Environment is a key performance area. Here, we were benchmarked a very respectable 70/100.

We are committed to CSR and will continue to set ourselves annual targets which are outlined in the table below.

Environment

We worked hard to maintain and improve our ISO 14001 certification in 2014, ensuring our activities are sustainable and help to make Colt an energy efficient company with both cost and environmental benefits. Our environmental management system is now integrated with our safety management system to provide further efficiency improvements.

To manage our environmental impact, we continued with our energy efficiency programme which now shows a reduction of 17,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, as well as €4.6m in power costs per annum¹ for the period 2010–2014. This was driven by a 2010–2014 PUE² reduction of 19% across 72 major sites, including both data centres and our telecommunications nodes, with total estimated savings of 49.8 GWh power consumption to date.

In May we published our 2013 carbon footprint to the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project). Following GHG³ Protocols and new DEFRA⁴ carbon emission factors, we achieved our best ever climate change rating of 66/100, which is above the international CDP average.

Based on the calculated average carbon density (greenhouse gas emission factor) and energy costs of Colt's data centre estate. Efficiency programme is ongoing and these savings relate to only a portion of Colt's data centre portfolio.
PUE is defined as power usage effectiveness which is a metric used to determine energy efficiency in data centres. PUE is calculated by comparing the total power used by a data centre to the actual power delivered to a computing device.
GHG Protocols of Green House Gas emissions have an accounting methodology that includes three categories. Scope 1: All direct GHG emissions. Scope 2: Indirect GHG emissions from consumption of purchased electricity, heat or steam. Scope 3: Other indirect emissions such as business air travel.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK.

Colt's carbon footprint – Greenhouse gas emissions statement


Boundary summary	All global operations of the reported years were included
Emission factor data source	DEFRA (2013 factors, 2012 factors)
Assessment methodology	The Greenhouse Gas Protocol
Intensity ratio	Emissions per €1m of revenue

Greenhouse gas emissions¹	2013 (tCO₂e)	2012 (tCO₂e)
Scope 1: Fuel combustion, fleet vehicles	1,947	1,939
Including scope 1 of facilities ²	0.54	0.31
Scope 2: Purchased Electricity	110,033	115,583
Scope 3: Business travel, transmission and distribution	15,024	14,259
Total carbon footprint calculated	127,004	131,782
Saving resulting from energy efficiency (estimated) ³	16,500	15,000
Intensity ratio: per €1m of revenue	71	73

UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC)⁴	2013/2014 (tCO₂e)	2012/2013 (tCO₂e)
Emissions falling under the CRC scheme	58,602	56,079

In June 2015 we will publish our 2014 carbon footprint to the Carbon Disclosure Project, after all relevant data has become available.
Includes fuel from the generators of our data centre sites.
Based on the calculated average carbon density (greenhouse gas emission factor) and energy costs of Colt's nodes and data centre estate, which are Colt's focus area for energy efficiency as our main emitting source.
As Colt has signed Climate Change Agreements for our three UK data centres, we expect a reduction of the scope of the UK operations falling under the CRC for the 2014/2015 reporting period.

17,000

TONNES
Reduced use of CO₂
equivalent through 2010
to 2014 energy efficiency
programme

Customers and suppliers

We help our customers and suppliers reduce their impact on the environment by creating more environmentally friendly, energy efficient IT service alternatives.

Colt's Network, Voice, Data Centre and IT services support lower emissions for our customers. For example, encouraging the use of communications services can help drive a reduction in business air travel.

We are well positioned to support our customers' own sustainability agenda, providing them with services based on our energy efficient infrastructures that can help them reduce their overall emissions.

Our Procurement and Supply department has surveyed the CSR activity of our top strategic suppliers. Our assessment included a number of ethical and environmental control measures, improving our existing knowledge of our strategic suppliers' CSR programmes and our capability to prevent CSR-related risks in our supply chain.

As at 31 December 2014 the Colt Group total employee base reflected a gender diversity of 24.2% female to 75.8% male. Following the appointment of Jennifer Uhrig on 1 January 2015, female representation on the Board has improved from 20% to 30% as from 1 January 2015.

	Female		Male		Total
Directors	2	20.0%	8	80.0%	10	100%
Senior Executives	12	10.8%	99	89.2%	111	100%
All employees	1,315	24.2%	4,123	75.8%	5,438	100%

People

Our people aim to create a great working environment for our employees. We believe that a diverse, motivated and values-driven workforce achieves more for themselves, those around them, and the business as a whole.

Our Code of Conduct ensures our conduct and responsibilities comply with all of the International Labour Organisation's Fundamental Principles. Completion is mandatory for all employees. We also support diversity and our equal opportunities policy, applicable in all of our regions, is designed to avoid discrimination in all aspects of the employment relationship.

As part of Colt's global presence we are able to enjoy a diverse workforce represented by 71 different nationalities. Colt's multicultural environment enables us to effectively work within the numerous communities in which we are based.

Community

In 2014 we had the greatest employee involvement to date with local charities, supporting our common cause of enhancing the lives of disadvantaged children and young people, in the cities where we operate. Every Colt employee has two days a year to volunteer, either with our local charity partner, or for an organisation of their choice.

In 2014, Colt employees registered over 8,200 volunteering hours, up 99% on 2013.

Across Colt, we raised over €157,094 for charitable causes in 2014 (2013: €155,020), making it the highest value raised from a combination of annual employee fundraising (over €107,074) and Company donations (€53,020) since the start of the CSR programme.

We remain committed to CSR, having to date dedicated the equivalent of €0.9m in employee time to volunteering causes. Our goal is to have a measurable, positive impact on the lives of disadvantaged children in the cities where we operate.

8,200

Volunteering hours
up 99% on 2013

	2014 Target	What we did in 2014	2015 Target
Environment	Continued energy efficiency to deliver a further 2.2GWh power consumption saving.	2.4GWh power consumption and over 750 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent saved.	Continued energy efficiency to deliver a further 1.5GWh power consumption saving.
	Increase video conferencing usage by 10%.	10.5% video conferencing increase supporting a record 19% reduction in number of business flights, saving over 335 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.	Increase audio and video conferencing usage by 5% to mitigate business travel.
	A further 3% reduction in business flights.
	Integrate ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 systems to deliver continuous improvements.	ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 delivered continuous improvement.	Maintain ISO 14001 certification and deliver continuous improvements.
Customers and suppliers	Implement changes in our operations within customer challenges identified by our customer satisfaction programme.	Customer challenges addressed by structured operational changes programme.	Continue to improve our Customer Experience, demonstrated by a further increase in Net Promoter Score.
	Further improve Net Promoter Score.	Net Promoter Score increased from 22% to 23%.
	Implement key ethical and environmental control measures in our supply risk management programme.	Key ethical and environmental control measures implemented through survey of top strategic suppliers.	Continued CSR assessment of our top strategic suppliers, and analysis of responses. Selection of one supplier with high level of compliance and one non-compliant supplier. Share best practices.
Our people	Conduct annual employee survey, demonstrate improved employee satisfaction around key issues from the previous survey.	Conducted annual employee with highest response rate; positive feedback includes improvements reported by employees around key issues from previous survey.	Conduct annual survey with greater benchmark information available and greater granularity of analysis. Ensure the survey covers employee feedback about our CSR programme.
	Maintain alignment to 18001 and continue to drive system improvements across our portfolio.	Alignment to 18001 maintained.	Maintain alignment to 18001 and continue to drive system improvements across our portfolio.
Community	Volunteer more towards our ultimate goal of delivering measurable social impact focused on "children and education" in our city-based communities; increase annual volunteering days by 100% by the end of 2018.	99% annual increase in volunteering time reported to a record 8,200 hours; record funds of €157,074 raised.	Volunteer more towards our ultimate goal of delivering measurable social impact focused on "children and education" in our city-based communities; increase annual volunteering hours to 10,000 by 2015.