BT plays the green card
UK telco BT has a cunning plan for turning the business around… by reducing its carbon footprint.
For some reason the powers that be at BT have decided the best way to bounce back from a global recession caused by a viral pandemic is to hug some trees. Specifically, the company is launching a Green Tech Innovation Platform, which seems to be some kind of eco-focused incubator, and has joined forces with The Climate Group to launch a new partnership called The UK Electric Fleets Alliance, which will virtue-signal about electric vehicles.
“The economic setback and immense hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic are severe and could be long lasting,” said BT Chief Exec Philip Jansen. “However, despite the temporary reprieve on carbon emissions and air quality in towns and cities during the lockdown, the global climate emergency hasn’t gone away.
“As we emerge from the crisis, the recovery presents a huge opportunity for governments, businesses and individuals to put action on climate at the heart of their efforts. We will be playing our part with a once-in-a-generation investment in the UK’s digital infrastructure: full fibre broadband to 20 million premises, as well as our continued investment in 5G mobile. We will also be backing new green technologies through our Green Tech Innovation Platform. BT is stepping up on climate action and we want to encourage and help others to do the same.”
This gesture is clearly aimed at the Davos set, for whom teen green activist Greta Thunberg has become the person they all turn to for guidance. There is apparently significant corporate reputational capital to be gained from saying all the right things about carbon reduction and electric vehicles, despite the benefits of both still being keenly disputed. BT shareholders must be hoping, however, that Jansen has a few other tricks up his sleeve to arrest reverse the apparently terminal decline in its share price.
LOL only 17% of electrical energy produced in the UK or imported is carbon free (as per the UK Government’s own figures), even ‘Clean Nuclear’ has a high carbon content through mining and the amount of concrete used in the building of nuclear power stations, along with the ongoing CO2 produced in the storage and clean up of disused sites.
Another utility company (electricity)decided it would be a good idea to buy and use electrically powered excavators, the idea being that they would get the power from the underground cables that they was working on, sounds ideal, nope the only problem is that when used to investigate underground cable faults these cables are dead, this leads to these electrically powered excavators being run off diesel generators.