Some of the world’s largest telecommunications companies have created an alliance to promote sustainable development within their industry.
The new group, called the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), will begin by exploring ways of increasing internet access to ‘remote and disadvantaged communities’ in developing countries.
All companies applying for membership will first be vetted by the steering group that set up the initiative to see if they ‘demonstrate a certain level of environmental achievement’.
Chris Tuppen, BT’s head of sustainable development and chair of the steering group, said the major role that telecoms companies play in globalization meant they had an obligation ‘to contribute to the societies within which they operate’.
He said GeSI would build on the ‘existing voluntary activities’ of each member company and encourage them to make the industry ‘socially responsible and progressive’.
Although it will initially concentrate on the environment and the digital divide, GeSI says it is committed to ‘gradually adopting a full corporate social responsibility agenda’.
Launched in Turin, Italy, last month, it has the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Telecommunication Union, which have been involved in its establishment.
The founding members are AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, Marconi, Telcordia Technologies, European Telecommunications Network Operators Association and the Norwegian telecoms and IT company Telenor.
Although the core membership will be telecoms companies, GeSI aims to attract suppliers of telecoms equipment as members.
Tuppen added that the alliance would focus on the development of technologies – such as video-conferencing and internet banking, learning and shopping – that it believed were environmentally and socially useful as well as profitable.
The launch of GeSI is the result of negotiations which began in February 2000, when 20 representatives of telecoms companies and interested groups were brought together by UNEP at a meeting in Paris to discuss the idea.