Deutsche Telekom is to commit itself to becoming more socially responsible with a sustainability programme for the period 2001-4.
Ignacio Campino, senior executive vice president at the German telecommunications company, said an outline of the programme approved by the board would commit it to being ‘a sustainable company in a sustainable society’.
He added that the programme was ‘a long term vision’ that would be implemented over a period of up to 50 years.
Campino said Deutsche Telekom was looking at how best to develop ‘sustainability co-efficients’, to help assess its progress towards sustainability.
The co-efficients are likely to be formula-based calculations that measure employee satisfaction and economic and environmental performance.
Deutsche Telekom, Europe’s second-largest telecoms company, has already done much work on environmental issues and is one of the highest ranked companies in the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index, which identifies the top 200 global companies that demonstrate the best performance on sustainability.