Green ICT for business customers

Green ICT programme

Swisscom’s Green ICT programme features products and services that are designed to help business customers reduce their energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. The following categories apply to Green ICT services:

• Reducing business travel: Virtual conferences, solutions for home offices and mobile work, solutions for optimising logistics
• Saving energy: Outsourcing and virtualising servers in efficient data centres, solutions for efficient workplaces
• Saving paper: Solutions for paper-saving printing and working without paper

The respective products and services are labelled as recommended by myclimate. The climate recommendation label illustrates the energy and CO₂ savings compared with previous consumption behaviour and can be viewed on the Internet.

In 2013, Swisscom once again implemented numerous measures to increase the utilisation of Green ICT services and thus reduce CO₂ emissions.

Swisscom expanded its offering of the Green ICT services bearing the myclimate label. These new services include, for example, the Collaborative Whiteboard, which can be used to discuss and draw up project outlines and plans on a long-distance basis.

The continued growth in revenue recorded in the year under review demonstrates the appeal of Green ICT services. 2013 also saw Swisscom issue more customers in Western and German-speaking Switzerland with Green ICT certificates. The certificates state the amount of emissions that the Swisscom customers have saved by using Green ICT products. 53 customers have so far received these Green ICT certificates. They save annually more than 15,000 tonnes of CO₂ and approximately 8,000 MWh.

• Swisscom collaborated with SBB and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) to investigate the effects of mobile working. It involved 250 test persons from Swisscom and SBB who refrained from using transport during peak hours between February and March 2013. Below are the key findings of the study:

• The total working hours of the test persons remained the same during the study; however, there was an increase in the amount of flexible working.
• Approximately two-thirds of commuter travel took place outside of peak hours.
• Overall, there was a significant increase in job satisfaction, well-being, motivation, the quality of family and social lives, and employer satisfaction.
• The test persons felt that the team’s performance and the atmosphere within the team remained as good as it was prior to the study.

The study thus verifies the huge potential of mobile work to relieve pressure on transport as well as increase employee satisfaction and productivity. The “Mobile work” guidelines in place within Swisscom lay out the key arguments in favour of mobile work. Furthermore, salespersons and special presentations provide Swisscom customers with information about the advantages of mobile work.

Swisscom also undertook the following activities in the area of Green ICT:

• National Home Office Day: Swisscom has supported the Home Office Day as a partner since its inception in 2010, and this year was the fourth time the company has participated. The “home office friendly” label for businesses was launched in 2013. This label identifies companies – e.g. in job advertisements – as attractive employers.
• Rewarding Green ICT customers: At a special event, Swisscom recognises business customers that have achieved energy savings and reductions in CO₂ emissions by using Green ICT services and received a Green ICT certificate.

Green ICT at Swisscom

Swisscom not only encourages its customers to use Green ICT, but also uses Green ICT solutions itself:

• 18 Swisscom sites are now equipped with the Telepresence virtual videoconferencing solution.
• Practically all Swisscom employees are now able to set up videoconferencing and desktop sharing with other colleagues at the click of a mouse, enabling them to work part of the time from home. Swisscom’s participation in the Home Office Day and the Work Anywhere study have also served to further embed the topic of new ways of working in the company culture. In 2013, internal guidelines were formulated for employees and their supervisors on the subject of mobile work.

CO₂ savings achieved thanks to Green ICT services

Energy savings achieved thanks to Green ICT services