Vodafone goes for renewables in carbon-slashing plan

Vodafone is going on a carbon cutting mission, taking a great big carbon coloured knife to its emissions. Big Red has its sights set on trimming half the carbon off its baseline (it’s a veritable game of carbon tennis!) of 1.23 million tonnes by 2020.

Thankfully, it’s not turning to the usual ‘we’re going to plant a few more trees and turn off our kettles’ but is instead going for more investment in renewables as well as doing more work on its energy efficiency. So there might be a bit of kettle-switching off, then.

The mobile operator also reckons it’ll be encouraging its users to take up products that cut down on their own emissions – like “solar-powered phone chargers and universal phone chargers for Vodafone-branded handsets”. Would a universal charger for all mobiles be too much to ask? Would it? Harrumph.

Anyway, here’s more from the folk at Newbury:

We have reviewed the options, including carbon off-setting, and have concluded that the most effective strategy is to cut our CO2 emissions directly. There are no simple solutions to what is a complex challenge, but through operational changes and technological innovation we will focus on improving energy efficiency in our networks, which account for 80% of our emissions. We will use renewable energy when and where we can.