Responsible Business

Our Sustainability Declaration #

A new fibre network, purpose built for the data age

Our network is fibre only and enables our partners to provide connections so quick and reliable they can be taken for granted. As we build our infrastructure, we strive to lead our industry, not just in terms of speed, reliability and service quality, but through our sustainable and responsible business practices too. Because our network is purpose built for the data age, we can make carbon-smart decisions up front, benefit from the latest power efficient technology and manage carefully the environment in which that technology lives to optimise its lifecycle and reduce waste.

Our commitment & focus #

We’re constantly seeking opportunities to use less energy and raw materials and developing robust systems to enable us to leave a fairer, greener, and healthier world behind us.

As part of this, we carefully select the partners we work with, ensuring they share our commitment to working more sustainably.

We’re committed to:

Achieving our ‘net zero carbon emissions by 2030’ plan
Monitoring, managing and publicly reporting on energy use and carbon performance on an ongoing basis
Embedding our commitment into all aspects of our organisation and taking our people with us on the journey.

We’re focused on:

Innovating with our supply chain to minimise the upstream environmental impact of rollout and operations – taking every opportunity to reuse raw materials and minimise waste
Embedding our responsible procurement practices across our operations
Working closely with suppliers to make environmentally-conscious equipment and product decisions.

Managing & monitoring #

CityFibre’s Carbon Reduction Plan has been completed in accordance with the Procurement Policy Note 06/21 (PPN 06/21). Our plan is aligned with the guidance and format for PPN 06/21 and meets the required detail as compared to the template for the Carbon Reduction Plan.

Emissions calculations and records are in accordance with the published standard for emission reporting; the GHG Reporting Protocol corporate standard. Data is processed using the appropriate Government emission conversion factors for greenhouse gas company reporting.

Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions have been reported using the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) methodology to identify and communicate material emission sources. The required subset of Scope 3 emissions is reported in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard.

The Carbon Reduction Plan has been reviewed and signed off by CityFibre’s Board of Directors.

Our Carbon Emissions:

	2020	2021	2022
Scope 1 Emissions (tCO2e)	395	148	373
Scope 2 Emissions (tCO2e)	1664	3949	1847
Scope 3 Emissions (tCO2e)*	921	1466	2646
Total Emissions (tCO2e)	2980	5563	4866

*Scope 3 Emissions - figures include categories 6. business travel and 8. upstream leased assets. Categories 1-3, 5 and 7 are to be calculated for 2022 in July 2023.

The 12 months to 31 Dec 2022 is the second reporting year to be compared against our 2020 baseline year.

Overall, CityFibre’s total emissions have decreased by nearly 700 tCO2e compared to 2021. Emissions are still higher than measured in CityFibre’s base year of 2020.

Scope 1 emissions have doubled since year one (2021) for two main reasons. Fuel data revealed that there was much more fuel use in CityFibre’s owned vehicles than in previous years. Scope 1 includes, for the first time this year, an estimate of fugitive emissions from the use of refrigerants.

Despite increased electricity consumption this year, CityFibre’s Scope 2 emissions have decreased, with two reasons why. The first is that CityFibre has collected the data for the renewable electricity that is procured for use in its offices and fibre exchanges. The second is that some emissions that were in Scope 2 in previous years have been moved to Scope 3 to account for the fact that CityFibre does not have operational control over the electricity contracts in their shared office spaces.

Scope 3 emissions have increased compared to previous years. In part, this is because emissions resulting from energy use (heating, electricity and cooling) have moved into Scope 3 from Scopes 1 and 2; however, as the economy has become more active again post-pandemic, business travel in non-company-owned vehicles has increased.

Notes

Scope 1 emissions now include estimates for refrigerant use at CityFibre solely for air conditioning.
Emissions from Scope 1 & 2 that were from shared office spaces or office spaces not directly operated by CityFibre have moved to Scope 3 Upstream Leased Assets.

Never standing still #

We’ve pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions across our own operations by 2028 and have an overall ambition to achieve the same across our value chain by 2030. We’ve committed to the Science Based Targets initiative to set our near term target, and our move to 100% renewable energy contracts is already well underway.

Since 2021 we have completed these emission reduction projects:

Scope 1

Fibre Exchange buildings are predominantly powered by grid electricity with a back up supply (for interruptions) available through a fuel powered generator. As of March 2022, CityFibre has mandated the use of Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO) biofuel only, replacing diesel consumption. Results for January 2023 are expected to show a reduction of bulk diesel emissions by 90%.

Scope 2

In June 2022 CityFibre took the decision to align all energy contracts with a single provider. Included in this deal was the purchase of Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin to supplement consumption of “brown” energy by ensuring an equivalence of “green” energy is available through the grid.

Scope 3

In October 2022 CityFibre completed an emissions lifecycle assessment from the end consumer of communications infrastructure. This research established the most material source of emissions.