Snapshot Of The Safaricom Sustainability Report

On the 5th of September, Safaricom Limited will be launching its first report on sustainability, which I believe is a first by a listed company in Kenya. This morning we attended a press workshop that gave us a preview of what is in the report, and I must say I’m looking forward to this. Doing business in a sustainable manner essentially means meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the future generations’ ability to meet their needs.

1.  Energy Security; Telecommunications is a heavy energy consumer and has in the past relied on diesel and electricity to power its base stations, which exposes it to significant energy risks and high costs due to fluctuating oil prices. Safaricom is slowly moving to hybrid energy. Currently, 4.5% of Safaricom’s sites are on green energy.  Using green energy is costly; it costs twice as much to have a “green base station” but the long term benefits are much higher than this.

2. Innovation: Sustainability in innovations means being deliberate in making innovations that impact and transform community. M Pesa is an easy example of this; a telcommunications company totally transforming financial services for the nation. Moving forward, Safaricom will be investing more in digital inclusion, broadening links with the developer community in terms of giving more access to developers for even more innovative solutions (I bet most developers are eyeing the M Pesa API), investment in enterprise business (hopefully the cloud will become cheaper for SMEs?) and of course greater innovation in the financial services sector.

3. Employee environment: In his words, Safaricom has sort to “Googlify” its working environment, both the physical offices and focusing more on outcomes, not employee face-time and deliberate investment in comprehensive staff wellness programs. Currently, the male to female ratio is 1:1.3, they are looking to even this out, and develop more women in  C-Level leadership. It is interesting that most of their sustainability initiatives have actually been as a result of seeking to improve employee welfare. Bob Collymore the Safaricom CEO gave an example of an issue that was raised at a staff gathering; that the staff cafe was on the 1st floor, making it impossible for a physically challenged staff member to access it, because the lift door was narrower than his wheelchair. Solving this internally prompted Safaricom to insist that its dealerships be designed for easy access by physically challenged clients. It has also made them more sensitive to user needs at call centres. It all starts from within.

4. Environmental Performance; Telecommunications is a highly wasteful sector. Use of diesel powered generators at base stations increases carbon footprint, so do large staff numbers that have to go to the office daily, paper waste, electronic waste etc. Safaricom has undertaken a carbon footprint audit and is looking to implement an e-waste management system.

It is currently the only telecommunications company that has an  EMF handbook, which is used to educate the community whenever they set up a base station in an area. It is also the only telecommunications company that has received an environmental compliance certificate from the National Environmental Authority (NEMA).

5. Ethics and values; The Safaricom Way of doing business that is anchored around 3 core ideas: Speed, Simplicity and Trust. There’s need to inculcate this across its ecosystem, review it’s internal controls, carry out bribery and ethics awareness sessions for its staff and suppliers.