T-Mobile
Netherlands
B.V.

T-Mobile Netherlands collaborates with various partners and organizations:

• Stibat: Non-profit organization to support the circular economy of batteries and accumulators .
• ICT Milieu: The ICT  Mileu Foundation organizes together with Wecycle the collection and processing of discarded ICT equipment.
• Monet: Association that coordinates the placement of antennas with the authorities on behalf of network operators.
• EcoVadis : Rating platform for assessing corporate social responsibility and sustainable procurement.

Electricity purchasing: 100 percent green
All the electricity used in our network, switch centers, offices, and shops is purchased 100 percent green. This means that all electricity used by T-Mobile Netherlands is generated by sustainable European wind. T-Mobile is therefore one of the greenest telecommunications providers in the Netherlands.

In 2021, T-Mobile consumed a total of 173 472 MWh of electricity and 213 715 m³ of natural gas. Despite our continuous growth and our 5G activities, we succeeded in reducing our electricity consumption by 5.3 percent compared to 2020. Although we have invested in relevant technological measures, including data-center consolidation, process virtualization and shutdowns of redundant legacy equipment, to some extent the decrease is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as our shops stayed closed for weeks on end and our offices were largely empty in 2021.

Energy consumption in buildings and shops
The energy consumption in our office buildings and shops increased slightly – by about four percent – from 2020 (5 740 kWh) to 2021 (6 005 MWh).  

Solar panels
In 2012, T-Mobile Netherlands took the initiative to install more than 300 solar panels on the office roof and at one of the datacenters. The solar panels produce approximately 60 000 KWh each year.

Energy efficiency in 2021
Over the past few years, our targets for reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions have been defined by the Energy Efficiency Directive guidelines. Our goal is to improve the energy efficiency of our products, services, and processes, and to reduce our use of fossil fuels. As energy efficiency improves, the amount of energy required per unit of product or service decreases. Significantly, the new generation of network equipment is by default more energy efficient. 

After the “plastic soup,” as the large amounts of plastic floating in our oceans are often referred to, e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world. This is also at risk of becoming a serious problem. T-Mobile puts substantial efforts into dealing with this problem through the Recycle Movement. This initiative is an innovative recycling program that addresses e-waste in an innovative way and stimulates circularity in the telecommunication sector. The Recycle Deal is part of the Recycle Movement in which T-Mobile offers customers the latest mobile phone and enables them to make an active contribution to reducing e-waste. Customers will be given the option to sell a device back to T-Mobile after a contract has expired and it will then be recycled or offered for reuse.

Over seven billion smartphones have been produced worldwide over the past decade. After customers purchase a new phone, old appliances all too frequently end up at the bottom of the kitchen drawer or are discarded with general waste. As a telecom provider, we now need to live up to our responsibility and actively contribute to a more sustainable use of the valuable raw materials, such as gold, silver, and copper, which are contained in old mobile phones. That responsibility does not stop until the end of the lifespan of an appliance when raw materials can be reused.

Our approach enables us to work together with our employees, customers, and partners in the Recycle Movement. This is a big step toward circularity in the telecom sector and in our ambition to transform mobile phones into waste-free tools. Hopefully, others in the sector will also participate. In 2021, 2 559 handsets were returned and recycled.

Technology plays a critical role in our daily lives and in society at large. We are all immersed in technology and can see it everywhere around us. Technology has enormous potential to enable and benefit us, and make our lives safer, more equal, and better for everyone. This is possible by foregrounding the human aspect in the advancement of technological innovation. Advancing technology may become a catalyst for social change and wellbeing. Look at everything 5G has to offer us.

Ambition: Our aim with the tech for humanity program is to use our technological skills, connectivity and best leading fixed and mobile network to accelerate innovation for solving social and environmental challenges. This is how we can lay the foundation for the digital transformation of society.

We are focusing on e-health, education, and smart cities. In 2021, we have been running three projects:

VRiendje: A joint venture with B2B customers (hospitals and nursing homes) to fight social exclusion and improve wellbeing using VR solutions and 5G.

Personlost: Using 5G to help find lost children on the beach with the Personlost App . This saves time for the rescue brigade, police and beach clubs.

Project March: Using connectivity to improve the exoskeleton to enable paralyzed people to walk again. 

We are working to make our packaging more sustainable with the following projects and solutions that have been piloted in 2021:

• Eco-sim: eco plastic (will be introduced in 2022)
• Half sim: two SIMS on the same card (50 percent plastic saving)
• E-SIM: toward zero packaging and zero-transport (introduced in 2021)
• Paper: 100 percent FSC certified

The ultimate ambition is to go 100 percent E-SIM.

Since 2020, T-Mobile has only been buying company clothing made from sustainable fabrics, such as recycled polyester or organic cotton, which has a positive effect on the environment. For example, our order of 1 100 polo shirts made from 100 percent organic cotton allowed us to save CO₂ and water: 440 kg of CO₂ and 1.5 million liters of water. That’s why all T-Mobile Netherlands corporate clothing will now be made from sustainable materials.

Social return program: At T-Mobile Netherlands, topics such as diversity and fair opportunities on the labor market have a central place in the Corporate Responsibility policy. T-Mobile and its customers want to enable an “inclusive society” and get people at a distance from the labor market back to work, regardless of the reason for the distance from the labor market. They might be people with an occupational disability or older people who have not been able to find a job for a number of years. We do this on the basis of our Social Return policy. Social Return agreements aim to contribute to increasing the labor participation of people at a distance from the labor market and they are integrated as a compulsory element of tenders. This involves making jobs resulting from the requested services and/or infrastructure available to people at a distance from the labor market so as to increase their participation in the workforce. In 2021, we launched our Back At Work program.

We unleash the full potential of our company by putting all our efforts into equality, diversity and inclusion. Different backgrounds and points of view make us stronger as a company and as individuals. In this way, we anchor ourselves within society and grow our creative and innovative power. We are a company where everyone can be themselves and everyone has equal opportunities. This is not simply a social duty, but a necessity in order to remain relevant as a company and as a supplier which serves a diverse group of customers. Activities in this program include the following:

• The Works Council is well-informed, supports the D&I program, and strives to achieve diversity in the Works Council.
• We set up a team of ambassadors and a task force for diversity, equality and inclusion in order to monitor and realize our ambitions, coach our managers and be a sparring partner for recruitment.
• We started to raise awareness on how to implement inclusivity and diversity in hiring processes among recruiters and hiring agencies.
• Our profile imagery represents a diverse and multicultural society. All employees, customers, and partners recognize themselves in our communication.
• We launched the Interchangeable holiday calendar to allow everyone to choose their own vacations.

Our society is digitizing rapidly and the effects of this go far beyond the technology itself. We will live together differently and work together differently.

Different factors (age, social status, access, network) lead to the social, economic and financial exclusion of vulnerable groups, including the elderly, youth, and children. 2.5 million people in the Netherlands have no access to or have difficulty using their digital devices.

Everybody deserves access to what our digitalizing world has to offer. The differences between those with and without access are creating a divide that isolates people. We won’t stop until everyone is connected. That way we contribute to a digital society that is healthy and inclusive.

Our ambition is to use digitalization to fight loneliness and social exclusion. We are focusing on elderly people and youth. We currently have several projects running:

Social SIM: donating devices to youth with a marginalized background. We do this in close cooperation with governmental organizations.

T-Mobile Netherlands outbound collection team
Over recent years, we have witnessed a significant increase in the number of people experiencing difficulties with payment of their monthly telephone bills. We set up an outbound collection team to address this worrying development. The team had the single goal of helping people to pay their bills, making sure they stay connected to the online world. We gave the team full scope to support these customers. The measures ranged from removing unused bundles and adjusting their subscription to concluding tailormade payment agreements. The focus within this unorthodox approach is establishing a personal connection and trying to understand the situation of these vulnerable customers. The result of this campaign was happy and relieved customers. And a welcome side effect was continued access to the online world for a special, more vulnerable group of users.

Partnership Join Us
We want to use digital technology to help people leave loneliness behind and participate in society. From May 2021, T-Mobile together with Join Us will be committed to helping young people in the Netherlands and raising awareness of this social problem. Eight percent of young people in the Netherlands feel chronically lonely. During the current period of the coronavirus, as much as 81 percent of young people indicate that they are lonelier than before the pandemic. T-Mobile supports Join Us in its program and in building an online community. Hundreds of young people spread across the Netherlands are now physically following the Join Us program in their hometown. They are not yet connected online. T-Mobile helps Join Us in researching and seizing the opportunities to expand online activities. We will also help with other issues such as optimizing websites, and setting up and rolling out online campaigns. This is how T-Mobile contributes to the ambition of Join Us to reach out to all lonely young people in the Netherlands.