Bharti Airtel has released the Sustainability Report 2011-2012 for its Indian operations.
The report provides a comprehensive overview of the company?s approach, initiatives and future plans pertaining to social and environmental development, including energy and climate change, waste management, customer service, digital inclusion and community engagement. The report also highlights the company?s blueprint on social inclusion, which is the cornerstone of its sustainability programme. Through this blueprint, the company aims to leverage its wide network, accessibility, affordable services and ability to manage scale to digitally enable financial, education, health and other services for the masses.
Commenting on the launch of the report, Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel, says, ?India, the world?s second largest telecom market, provides a remarkable growth opportunity for 1.2 billion people, out of which, 900 million people are connected through mobile. Hence, operators have a huge role to play in bringing a paradigm shift in the lives of million. Sustainability, for us, hence, cannot remain a static one time agenda ? it has to include the entire ecosystem in which we operate. Today India has a low patient to doctor ratio of 1:10,000; there are 100000 schools with only 1 teacher and 50 per cent of the population does not have a bank account while 30,000 bank branches can never service 6,00,000 villages.?
He adds, ?These critical social gaps can be bridged by telecommunication which can bring wide reaching and affordable healthcare, education and financial services, thereby leading to a remarkable social transformation through social inclusion.?
As per the report, the operator has reduced greenhouse gas emissions per terabyte in its network infrastructure by 11 per cent in financial year 2011-12. Further, the operator saved about 20 million KWh of energy by consolidating its facilities and improving the energy efficiency of its data centre. In its efforts to ensure sustainability and increase social inclusion, Bharti Airtel plans to digitise its network resulting in better coverage and increased penetration of internet.
