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INTRODUCTION
| THE YEAR IN REVIEW | MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN
| MESSAGE FROM THE CEO |
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GOALS HIGHLIGHT ROLE FOR BUSINESS
The SDGs have expanded our outlook and ambitions
and reminded us that sustainable development is
not about carrying out sustainability-related initiatives
outside of our business, but rather is about creating
commercially viable solutions to global problems. The
SDGs seek to address large-scale issues and, if we are
to tackle these challenges in meaningful, long-term
ways, we must do more than simply provide financial
contributions — we need to empower people to
uplift themselves. The best solutions are those that
are economically feasible because this makes them
maintainable and scalable. This reality is why the
SDGs highlight the important role business has to
play in sustainable development. As the Business
and Sustainable Development Commission has
pithily noted: this is about return on capital, not just
responsibility.
We still have much to learn and do in terms of
integrating the SDGs into Safaricom, but I am pleased
with the progress we have made this year. Each
division has identified the SDGs that are relevant to
their objectives and started aligning their activities
accordingly. This first phase in the process was largely
concerned with raising awareness and I am pleased
to note that an independent survey found that 83%
of staff members are now familiar with the SDGs. In
the next phase, we will start monitoring our progress
against SDG-related targets and I look forward to
reporting on our efforts in this regard next year.
A NEW TYPE OF BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
The SDGs inspire a new type of business leadership as
well — one that is bold enough to balance short-term
profit against long-term gain. The SDGs remind us that
sustainability needs all of us working together to make
a lasting impact. That is why I have been delighted
by the response to our programme of CEO Meetings
and, in particular, how we built upon the momentum
created at the CEO gathering in December to
launch
The B Team - Africa
just two months later,
in February 2017.
The B Team - Africa
is an exciting
alliance of business leaders from across the region
who believe that the purpose of business is to be a
driving force for social and environmental, as well as
economic benefit and who are committed to driving
a better way of doing business for the wellbeing of
both people and planet.
GENDER EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
Gender equality and diversity were areas of
particular focus for me during the year. While we
have made great strides as a business in terms of
our overall gender parity, women are still relatively
underrepresented at senior management levels.
It is an area that we are determined to address
further and one of our first steps is to disclose the
matter transparently and start reporting the specific
numbers, and our progress against these, annually.
Our level of diversity is equally unfortunate, with only
1.4% of our colleagues being people from minorities
or with disabilities. We have firmly committed to
address this issue and ensure that at least 5% of our
workforce is diverse by 2020.
NET ZERO BY 2050
In response to the very serious threat of climate
change, we have made the bold commitment to
becoming a net zero carbon-emitting company by
2050. We have improved the accuracy of the data
we use to calculate our carbon footprint this year as
well and this improvement is discussed in further detail
on page 38 of this report. Based on this enhanced
data, our carbon footprint decreased by 1% to
78,927 tCO2e this year, which is a satisfactory result
“This is about return
on capital, not just
responsibility.”