Responsibility for assessing the risks and opportunities regarding climate change within BT is taken at the highest level. A committee chaired by Sir Michael Rake, Chairman of BT, including non-executive directors, independent members, and key executives, sets the global strategy for the BT Group for approval by the Board. It monitors, manages and reports on mitigating climate change impacts and adapting business to reduce risk exposure to the direct impacts of climate change such as severe weather. These risks are identified at a company-wide, global level and managed though a
comprehensive strategy.
A Corporate Responsibility (CR) Risk register describes each risk and identifies the risk owner and manager. The scope of these risks is inclusive covering reputational risks, physical risks from severe weather, regulatory risks and behaviour change
across all stakeholders and the communities in which they operate. It is updated at least twice a year by the CR Risk Forum made up of risk and sustainability experts from across the business and reviewed annually by the BT Board and the external Leadership Advisory Panel, chaired by well-known green campaigner Jonathon Porritt. Eric Anderson, Senior Sustainability Manager, for the BT Group, commented, “Our drive for a better future by being a responsible and sustainable business leader, is embedded into our company strategy to build a better business.”
To adapt for extreme climate impacts within its Business Continuity planning BT has revised its severe weather plan and appointed a lead role for environment projects within the Business continuity team. Improving the reliability of products and services reduces the problems that customers experience, and making the physical network infrastructure more resilient to disruption from severe weather helps to reduce costs of additional maintenance visits and the associated travel. Benefits are being noted and since 2007 there has been a 37% drop in carbon emissions associated with site visits to repair the network, along with corresponding reductions in costs and complaints from loss of service and costs.
The company recognises that it is exposed to intense rainfall risk, and not simply floods breaching river banks. It therefore tracks average rainfall on a regular basis and maps it against fault rates. Measurements show the fault rate is only slightly higher in periods of heavy rainfall suggesting this risk is manageable.
BT is carefully choosing locations for its switching centres for its new 21C network to adapt to increasing flooding and severe weather conditions and prevent the difficulties experienced in recent years across the UK. The new locations have minimal risk of flooding from potential sea level rises associated with climate change and are away from flood plains identified by the Environment Agency. BT has also worked with the Environment Agency across the UK to help communities and helping to double the number of homes and businesses that receive flood warnings.
Investment is also being made in making the underground network more resilient to flooding and preventing damage to cables from water ingress by replacing old water resistant joints with new more effective joints. An ongoing programme is removing ‘blue bean’ connectors in the BT network which don’t work when they come into contact with moisture. Over 14m of the 108m blue bean connectors in the total network have been replaced to date. These improvements together with other operational efficiencies mean that on average Openreach, which looks after the first mile of network from the exchange through to homes and businesses, now experiences a fault once every 13.6 years as opposed to 9 years when Openreach was formed in 2006.
In order to plan for increased average temperatures BT has an energy and efficiency programme to reduce its energy costs for cooling. Replacing inefficient fan motors to increase the effectiveness of chilled air and reducing the load on air conditioning units generates annual energy savings of £13m from an investment of £17m used to install 22,000 smart meters and an advanced smart control network to optimise heating and cooling at major sites. The system has reduced cooling costs by 40 per cent across the first 1200 sites, delivering improved temperature reliability and improving customer service.
BT uses free air cooling, where geography allows, bringing in external “fresh” air to help subsidise the powered cooling used in equipment rooms. The location of a new data centre in Italy was chosen so that a naturally replenished waterbed 40 meters below the surface could be used as a means of cooling. The natural water absorbed four times as much heat as air. Four wells were drilled and pumps installed underground to bring the water to a specially constructed reservoir beneath the data floor. The walls of the data centre were designed to conceal the pipework and house a heat exchanger and completely isolate the water from the equipment. Under normal operating conditions power is only used for the pumps that raise and circulate the water and for the fans. This has reduced energy consumption. In addition, the warm water created from the cooling process is not wasted but piped to local farms to irrigate crops. In cooler months fresh-air cooling supplements the water based cooling. BT’s financial savings using this process enables them to pass on the benefit to customers with attractive service pricing.