Management & facts

From 2017 to 2021, we were able to reduce the carbon emissions of our vehicle fleet – which includes around 18 600 vehicles – by 40 percent. The remaining emissions have been offset via CO₂ certificates since 2021. The main factors affecting the level of mobility-related carbon emissions are the average number of internal combustion vehicles, annual mileage and the associated fuel consumption. We introduced a policy for business vehicles in Germany in January 2023 in order to further reduce mobility-related carbon emissions. It sees us commit to only ordering company cars with electric drive systems in Germany from 2023. As soon as charging infrastructure has been rolled out across the board and there is a sufficient supply of suitable electric vehicles, then we will also be able to switch our service vehicles entirely to e-mobility.

Along with use of environmentally friendly drive systems, the transition to climate-friendly mobility calls for expansion and support of the charging-station infrastructure and intelligent linking of new and existing forms of mobility. Our goal is to make it a matter of fact that alternative forms of mobility are used at the Group; any decision about a particular means of transportation should be scrutinized and awareness raised on a sustainable basis. Consequently, in addition to investing in our fleet, we are also promoting more sustainable forms of travel and commuting for our employees. In 2022, for instance, we set up bike service points at 36 locations and electric bicycle charging stations in five locations. There were also five additional bike service stations and eight combined repair and electric charging stations due for delivery in early 2023. Additionally, the EcoShift app  was launched in Germany in 2022, allowing commuting employees to track their carbon footprint.

All of these efforts are based on the three pillars of our DT mobility strategy:

• Diversified portfolio: Building a more efficient, increasingly sustainable fleet with climate-neutral drive systems and integrating micro-mobility (e.g., bicycles, e-scooters)
• Digital services: Pooling and sharing solutions, mobility app (E2E digitalization of life cycle services for company cars and service vehicles)
• Connected mobility: Linking existing and new forms of mobility and mobility services with the help of a digital platform

Interconnecting transport services
Interconnection between different modes of transport will become increasingly important in future. For this reason, we plan to offer the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform in 2023. The platform combines various different modes of transport, including public transportation, privately shared vehicles and Deutsche Telekom vehicles (including services such as “Shuttle on Demand” and car-sharing). MaaS will give our employees added convenience and flexibility in their commuting options. The MaaS platform and app were developed by Telekom MobilitySolutions and Hacon, a Siemens subsidiary. For the launch of the service, we have entered into a cooperation agreement with a public-transportation operator (and thereby become the first non-transport company to do so) – VRS. The resulting service will become available to Deutsche Telekom employees, and their friends and families, as part of a pilot project in the Cologne/Bonn region in the first half of 2023. We plan to expand the service gradually to incorporate other mobility partners, regions, and third-party offerings.

Carbon offsets
When it comes to carbon emissions, our mobility strategy prioritizes reduction over offsetting. In the transition phase to zero-emission mobility, we are using carbon offsets to reach our climate protection targets. In 2022, we offset 100 percent of the carbon emissions from business operations of Deutsche Telekom’s vehicle fleet in Germany. In this context, oil companies make an annual contribution to the fuel purchased, and the deficit is covered by CO₂ certificates. This carbon offset aids projects that are certified according to recognized standards and ensures that our vehicle fleet is largely climate-neutral while we transition to zero-emission mobility in line with our climate neutrality target by 2025. In future, we will gear our carbon offsets to real carbon removal certificates in our emissions accounting according to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.

Green fleet
A new policy for business vehicles has been in effect in Germany since January 2023, establishing a key foundation for the transformation of our company car fleet. It will help us on our way to achieving climate neutrality in our own business operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2025 at the latest. One component of the new policy concerns the full electrification of our company car portfolio. It sees us commit to only ordering company cars with electric drive systems in Germany from 2023. At the same time, the usage lifetime will be extended from 36 to 48 months to increase resource efficiency.

The process of electrifying our service vehicle fleet, which includes vehicles used by field service technicians, requires more extensive preparations. It necessitates a suitable range of available cars and small and large vans that meet the relevant requirements, in particular those concerning range and loading space. A suitable range of vans is not expected to come onto the market until 2023 onwards. Preparations must also be made for rolling out workplace and home charging infrastructure so that employees have a fully charged vehicle when starting work in the morning.

At the end of 2022, we had around 1 180 electric company cars in our inventory or on order. The strained supply chain situation continues to result in unplanned changes to deliveries of the electric vehicles we have ordered.

E-scooters were introduced as service vehicles throughout Germany in 2022 following successful testing in 2021 as part of our micromobility concept. Some 300 e-scooters have been put into service for our service technicians and engineers. These vehicles are used in a day-to-day work context for traveling short to medium distances, for instance, for setting up internet connections in large cities with limited parking space. Other usage scenarios will be tested in 2023 with a view to expanding e-scooter use to other business areas.

Salary sacrificing scheme: bicycles or e-bikes
Since 2015, our salary sacrificing scheme has enabled our employees to sacrifice some of their salary for the purchase of resource-conserving and health-promoting bicycles or e-bikes, which they can lease from their employer for three years. The monthly payments are deducted from the employee’s gross salary. Orders may be placed year-round, via an external leasing partner. In addition to ordering from that partner’s own portfolio, employees have the option of ordering from a bicycle dealer of their own choosing. Deliveries and a local service are available for all of Deutsche Telekom’s locations in Germany. Currently, over 9 000 bicycles are being leased via this scheme.

Cities, companies and households alike are all benefiting from the expansion of the charging infrastructure for electric cars, an effort that is facilitating the transition to environmentally responsible mobility. Electric mobility will help make living and working spaces greener, more sustainable and more modern – and thereby more attractive for the public and for working people.

The transition to e-mobility will succeed only if a suitably smart, convenient charging infrastructure is in place. Deutsche Telekom has extensive expertise and experience in the planning, procurement, construction and operation of charging stations, and it plans to use these strengths in the coming years to support the transition to e-mobility. In the process, it will look beyond its own immediate needs and offer complete infrastructure packages for customers.

For example, Deutsche Telekom will offer smart solutions for cities, regions and companies seeking to install and operate charging infrastructures. As part of its complete-system approach, Deutsche Telekom will offer business customers a full range of services, including planning, construction, installation, and service/operation. Along with the necessary equipment, such solutions will include software for the operation of charging stations and for customer administration.

The company’s activities in this area are organized as follows:

Comfort Charge GmbH
Comfort Charge GmbH has been constructing and operating charging infrastructure at Deutsche Telekom locations nationwide since 2018.

Within two years, Comfort Charge’s expansion plans call for it to be providing and operating up to 300 fast-charging stations, and several hundred additional charging systems for electric vehicles (service vehicles, company cars and employees’ cars), at Deutsche Telekom Group locations.

The fast-charging stations at the locations will also be available to the public. With the charging speed the stations will offer, drivers will be able to add about 100 kilometers of range to their electric vehicles within 10 minutes.

Comfort Charge’s expertise as a charge point operator will also benefit the services provided by Deutsche Telekom's business customer sales in this connection.

Deutsche Telekom’s Technical Service has been active in planning, constructing, and servicing charging infrastructure since 2010.
The quality service that Deutsche Telekom’s field service offers nationwide includes a range of e-mobility services provided at customer sites. With the support of its technical services, over 50 partners now offer various e-mobility services, including location scouting, installation of charging stations, and repair and service of charging stations. Deutsche Telekom is also one of the largest service providers for charging solutions for private households, with over 25 000 service contracts carried out overall throughout Germany. Our partners and customers in this area include energy suppliers, electronics retailers, charging-equipment manufacturers, automakers, and providers of fleet solutions.

With its large technician workforce, and its high quality standards, Deutsche Telekom is well-placed to serve the growing nationwide demand for infrastructure solutions – and thereby make a valuable contribution to the transition to sustainable mobility.

Deutsche Telekom Geschäftskunden GmbH
Over the past year, Deutsche Telekom Geschäftskunden GmbH has also been helping to boost sustainability, by supporting its business customers in addressing their various interests, roles, and goals in the area of e-mobility. As part of these efforts, it has installed more than 100 normal-charging stations (AC) and fast-charging stations (DC) at public and non-public customer locations in Germany, in the framework of holistic, end-to-end solutions including planning, construction, installation, service, and the necessary equipment and software.

E-mobility is also being promoted at our national companies. Our company in Croatia, for example, has been offering an app-based digital charging service for electric vehicles since 2020. Customers use the app , which is known as “espoTs,” to search for and use charging stations. No subscription or contract is required. T-Mobile US is also investing in EV-charging stations at its locations. Yet another example: Our national company in Hungary launched a pilot project in 2021 to determine availabilities in the area of electric cars and charging stations, with a view to adding more electric cars to its vehicle fleet in the future.

We measure our activities to promote greener mobility at Deutsche Telekom using various KPIs, and we have been collecting data for them since 2020.

By operating 161 fast-charging stations in Germany, we were able to save over 180 metric tons of CO₂e. This is equivalent to the CO₂ emissions of a car traveling approximately 985 000 kilometers.

The total number of vehicles at our company decreased slightly with respect to the previous year. While the majority of our vehicles still have diesel engines, their share of our overall fleet decreased in the year under review. To accelerate our transition to greener mobility, we have intensified the expansion of our charging-station infrastructure. Also, we continue to focus on green alternatives to gasoline/diesel-powered engines, and on fuel-efficient engines – subject to cost-effectiveness criteria – when purchasing new company cars and service vehicles. This has enabled us to increase the total number of our fleet vehicles with green alternatives to gasoline/diesel-powered engines by 50 percent, with respect to the corresponding figure in 2021.

For detailed comments on the performance indicators for each individual company, please refer to the interactive performance-indicator tool in our company comparison. More information about our Green Car Policy , alternative engines and our goals for climate-friendly mobility is available here.

Overall fuel consumption fell by approximately 2 percent. For company cars, it fell by 5 percent, while for service vehicles consumption rose by 6 percent. For detailed comments on the figures for each individual company, please refer to the interactive benchmarking tool.

In 2022, about 5 000 employees of the Deutsche Telekom Group in Germany used a discount season ticket provided by their employer to commute by public transport.

We offer regional discount season tickets (monthly or annually) to our employees at many of our German Deutsche Telekom sites, especially in high-density population areas. The offer encourages our employees to use climate-friendly public transportation and helps them keep their commuting costs down.