Indirect emissions along our value chain, or Scope 3 emissions , make up the majority of our total emissions. For climate protection to be credible, these emissions must be recorded so that targeted measures can be implemented at company and product level to reduce our carbon footprint.

  Data assured by PwC. For detailed assurance comments see „DT Group in Germany“ and „T-Mobile USA“. Values for 2016 have been adjusted retrospectively.

We have been disclosing the Scope 3 emissions generated throughout the Group since 2016. In 2018, these emissions amounted to around 14.4 million metric tons of CO₂e, which is roughly equivalent to the level recorded for the previous year. At around 5.7 million metric tons of CO₂e, emissions in Germany were also at the same level as the previous year. The majority of emissions can be attributed to procurement (in particular of devices and network technology) and the use of our products and services (for sold or rented) fixed-line and cell phones, routers, and media receivers, and for products such as laptops or television sets that our customers use so they can make the most of our services. Of equal importance are the emissions resulting from the manufacture and transportation of technology for establishing our networks.

In 2018, we modified the method for calculating Scope 3 emissions. To ensure comparisons can be made with the previous year’s values, we have recalculated the data for 2017 using this method.

¹⁾Corrections for 2016 led to some changes being made compared to the previous year’s report.

²⁾The 2017 rise resulted from the national companies in Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro, and T-Systems units being recorded for the first time, which contributed to the 27-percent increase of the Group value compared to 2016.

Due to the large proportion of emissions in our supply chain, we have a responsibility to reward our suppliers for eco-friendly activities and thus also to reduce our Scope 3 emissions. Since as early as 2016, we have been disclosing our activities to bring on board suppliers under the auspices of the supplier engagement rating of the CDP  (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). This rating assesses how well companies have been able to integrate the topic of climate protection into their supply chain. In 2018, we once again improved on the previous year and achieved an “A”, as we did in 2016. This has secured our place on the Supplier Engagement Leader Board. An important step in achieving this was calculating the supplier-specific emission intensities based on supplier responses to the CDP Supply Chain Program. This involves calculating the ratio between a supplier’s overall emissions (Scope 1 and 2 and Scope 3 from the upstream supply chain) in grams and the supplier’s overall sales. As we know the procurement volume attributable to a given supplier, we can also calculate our proportion of the supplier’s emissions based on emissions intensity. Our calculations do, however, depend on our suppliers providing complete and correct information.

Employee commuting
In the reporting year, we carried out a Group-wide survey on commuting and more than 71,000 employees took part. In the year under review, we recorded a reduction in emissions arising from commuter traffic, with levels dropping from 762,000 in 2017 to 538,000 metric tons of CO₂e. A more detailed analysis and a comparison with other companies will help us in 2019 to understand how we can reduce these emissions in the future while taking into account the mobility needs of our workforce.

Do you have questions on this topic?
Ask our expert:

Andreas Kröhling