Idea Cellular, one of the leading telecom operators in India has released the company's first GRI-G4 Sustainability Report. This report marks Idea's achievements across the Aditya Birla Group’s three pillars of Sustainability - Responsible Stewardship, Stakeholder Engagement, and Future Proofing, further outlining a comprehensive roadmap and targets up to the financial year 2021. The report is aligned to GRI-G4, the highest international standards in sustainability reporting.
Idea Cellular is calling its first standalone sustainability report as 'Calling Tomorrow 2016,' and it outlines the company's journey of achieving national and international standards of being a responsible business and being accountable for social and environmental impacts while pursuing high growth.
The report lists all the achievements in Idea Cellular’s journey to be the leading Indian telecom group for sustainable business practices. The report says over 19 percent of Idea-owned telecom towers are operated by hybrid power, reducing Co2 emissions by 52,000 tons per annum in 2016. Idea Cellular also reconfigured the sites further reducing CO2 emissions by 62,000 tons.
Here are the achievements made by Idea Cellular:
1. 90% of servers are virtualized across data centres, resulting in 1/3rd the power consumption
2. Zero cases of child labour and zero human rights violations in 2016
3. One-third of young leaders in Idea are Women
4. 62,572 person-days of training conducted in 2016
5. 100% compliance with EMF norms
6. CSR activities reached 9 States, 33 districts and 3,250 villages providing support for education, healthcare and sanitation?
7. #1 position in C-SAT (Customer Satisfaction) scores
8. Idea Money operations expanded to 2 million customers in its goal towards digital financial empowerment
Furthermore, Idea says that its sustainability agenda is not confined simply to its business practices, but also extends to its employees, customers, partners and suppliers. The country's third largest telecom operator is also engaging its employees across the country so they can become agents in promoting the sustainability agenda across the organisation and in the community. Idea’s network reaches nearly a billion people with a total number of 241,540 sites across over 400,000 towns and villages.
According to Mr Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director, Idea Cellular, “Sustainability at Idea Cellular is the holistic pursuit of a vision to be the most admired telecom company that creates long-term value for all stakeholders by balancing economic growth with environmental and social development.”
