The world is celebrating World Earth Day today, encouraging everyone to support the planet. Globally, companies are increasingly placing environmental sustainability at the top of their agendas. This topic has an impact on both business strategy and supply chain decisions as well as consumer purchasing decisions.
At GO, attitudes towards the environment are changing. There is a greater awareness and a deeper need to make real change. In its quest to be a purposeful-led organization, GO has made environmental sustainability a pillar of its strategic program.
Its goal is to enable its customers to reduce their carbon footprint while it works as a company to reduce theirs. GO is working towards becoming carbon neutral or reducing carbon footprint to a minimum. They have an ambitious programme in place.
GO has measured its carbon emission in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard for the third year running. This is the most widely used greenhouse gases accounting standard for organisations around the world. The 2021 measurement has been expanded to include more categories, including upstream and downstream emissions related to activity by suppliers, customers, and employees working remotely.
GO’s long term strategy is based upon reducing, replacing, or transforming. GO is actively reducing size of its equipment rooms. Marsa premises were the subject of work. Birkirkara site works are expected to be completed by the end of this year, as more energy-efficient equipment is being installed.
GO’s deployment, at more than 50%, of its fibre to the home network network across the Maltese Islands is a positive step in replacing the legacy copper network. The company is also deploying its 5G network − technology designed to transfer data in a more energy efficient manner. The technology’s potential increase in energy consumption will be offset by efficiency features, antenna optimisation and transmitters not being used and kept on standby. GO’s plans for its new headquarters in Żejtun include a building which will be one of the leading sustainable buildings on the island through energy-saving light, motion sensors, the use of secondary water stored in purposely built on-site reservoirs and photovoltaics to generate as much renewable energy as possible.
GO, a remote-first company indirectly contributes to less pollution by allowing a majority its workforce to work at minimum three days remotely. This hybrid mode of working reduces the commute time and is a significant reduction in carbon emissions.
GO also invests heavily in its people and their education. It has launched a new training awareness called GO Green to raise awareness and encourage collective efforts. To increase their knowledge about climate change and the actions required to save our planet, all employees were asked to complete a survey.
All employees will be invited into an interactive workshop. They will be encouraged to take action in their personal lives and in their work teams to address the climate crisis. The equipment that was recovered is being evaluated and, where possible, refurbished and reissued. This not only helps GO save money but also helps reduce its carbon footprint.