Keen to highlight its increased emphasis on environmental concerns, Orange has been congratulating itself for being ranked among 179 companies recognized by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for their actions on climate risks.

Orange has long been working to be a more green organization, and stepped those efforts up a gear with an increased emphasis on environmental concerns as part of its Engage 2025 strategy, which it unveiled in December.

The France-based operator has outlined a number of strategic targets for the next five years, including €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in cost savings and earnings growth of between 2% and 3%. It also noted that strong economic performance "will not be possible without exemplary performance on social and environmental issues," and is aiming to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Notably, the 2040 target set by Orange is ten years ahead of the objectives laid out in a GSMA-led initiative to develop a mobile industry climate action roadmap in line with the Paris Agreement.

Although the GSMA said in September 2019 that more than 50 mobile operators were disclosing climate impacts, energy and greenhouse gas emissions via the CDP global disclosure system, only nine operators made it onto CDP's climate change "A list" based on 2019 data. As well as Orange, these include BT, Cellnex Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, LG Uplus, Telefónica, Telstra and Taiwan Mobile.

A number of major Tier 1 operators are absent from this list, although they should be taking a lead on implementing carbon neutral strategies given expected energy consumption levels as data usage rises. Orange aims to achieve its target by reducing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency, using secondhand network equipment and providing more secondhand devices in stores.

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— Anne Morris, Contributing Editor, Light Reading