Lessons from Safaricom's 10 years of sustainability reporting

A company’s ability to positively impact social and environmental change has become an increasingly relevant consideration for businesses and shareholders.

Environmental, social and governance factors cover a broad range of issues that touch on everything from the company culture to climate impact and diversity.

Sustainability reporting aims to highlight both a company’s wins and challenges around these issues. It seeks to go beyond the financial performance to give a more intimate and accurate description of a business.

We also know that it is not good enough to simply make claims about your level of sustainability; We need to provide tangible, credible demonstrations, by following proper guidelines for sustainability reporting.

For the last 10 years, Safaricom sustainability reporting has set us apart from other businesses, but our Sustainability journey really began much earlier; In the year 2000 when Safaricom was born.

Even then we knew that we exist to do more than just provide connectivity to Kenyans: we knew that we exist to transform lives.

TRANSFORMING LIVES

Today, we continue to be guided by our purpose of transforming lives and the SDGs which sit at the heart of our business strategy and informs everything we do.

By staying true to our purpose, we are helping farmers to improve their agricultural practices and giving them access to inputs and credit.

We are empowering learners with access to education and breaking down barriers to allow Kenyans all over the country to access quality, affordable, medical care.

Guided by our purpose, we are also using our voice to advocate for better governance, to protect the rights of children, to push for greater diversity and inclusion in the workplace and to raise awareness about climate change.

Our purpose has also been our guiding light as we continue to help the country navigate the Covid-19 pandemic through both our philanthropic arms and our products and services.

We do not do these things because we are expected to; we do them because we believe it is the right thing to do.

Having walked this journey for the last decade, there are some valuable lessons we believe we have picked over the years and I would like to share with you just three main ones.

The first thing we learnt early in the journey is the importance of not only knowing and showing your numbers but demonstrating how you are growing these numbers.

A great example of how we track, report and act on our numbers is through our commitment to become a Net-Zero carbon emitting company by the year 2050.

It is an ambitious goal, but one that is forcing us to think more creatively about how we can achieve it while still supporting network growth.

Over the last seven years, we have been measuring our carbon footprint and we have now successfully registered our carbon reduction targets with the Science-based Targets Initiative.

This means that our targets are in line with the latest climate science deemed necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, which is limiting global warming to well-below two degrees above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.

So far, 92 percent of the over 5,500 sites in our network are running on either the national grid or renewable and hybrid energy sources.

We have also planted over 800,000 trees under our carbon offset tree growing initiative which is part of our commitment to grow 5 million trees in five years, which we estimate will offset 26 percent of our emissions.

The other lesson we have learnt is around the role of leadership in the sustainability journey.

At Safaricom we are fortunate to have had the support of not only the executive leadership team but that of the board as well who are responsible for ensuring that sustainability remains at the heart of our overall business strategy.

To use a popular phrase, our leaders led by the chairman, board and the CEO have not only talked the talk but are walking with the team in the sustainability journey.

The best example of this is around how we approached the integration of the SDGs

We used a co-creation approach which consisted of engaging with the senior leadership team and Sustainability Champions to develop a framework for integrating the SDGs into our corporate strategy.

As the report highlights, we have now incorporated our priority SDGs into our performance objectives, both as a company and on an individual employee level.

Each division is implementing projects or developing products and services in line with the SDGs.

Reporting on targets related to the SDGs is now central to our ways of working, and we seek to empower all those with whom we work to set their own.

All this has been possible because the leadership team have set the tone from the very top.

The final lesson we have picked and probably the most important one is that Sustainability remains a journey, not a destination.

It is not about merely hoping to become 100 percent sustainable someday, but about working towards that goal every single day.

During this journey we have also learnt the importance of carrying others along.

Through the Sustainable Future Series, which we launched last year, we aim to inspire more business leaders in the private sector role to work together to tackle some of the most pressing challenges of this decade.

CODE OF CONDUCT

We continue to encourage all our suppliers to sign up to our Supplier Code of Conduct and the Code of Ethics for Businesses in Kenya.

The provisions under these codes cover relations with competitors, bribery and conflicts of interest, child labour, wages and benefits, as well as environmental matters.

It is commendable to see more organisations joining us in this journey and we congratulate companies like East African Breweries who recently launched their inaugural sustainability report.

What we have achieved so far, and the targets we are setting are not just a sign of our commitment to operating a sustainable business: they are a promise we are making to our stakeholders.

As the private sector, we are in a unique position to drive positive change especially now more than ever.

Our responsibilities go beyond generating returns for our investors to creating real, shared value for every single one of our stakeholders.

Chege is Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Safaricom