Safaricom 2023 Sustainable Business Report

48 OUR BUSINESS OUR STAKEHOLDERS KPI SUMMARY SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2023 OUR MATERIAL TOPICS PROMOTING CIRCULARITY We have moved away from the linear model of take, make, consume, and dispose mode to fully embrace the principles of the circular economy – reduce, preserve and regenerate. Doing so has many advantages, including income generation. One of the ways we achieved this was through a pilot involving the trade-in of mobile devices in different retail shops in partnership with Badili Africa and Calcare. Over 300 mobile phones were traded in, and we plan to scale up the project in the next fiscal year. Where mobile devices have reached their end of life and cannot be refurbished, we extract the parts for re-use. In addition, we realised KSh 220 million through the sale of 488 570 pieces of network equipment to Toronto Merchants who will refurbish and re-use this equipment. In total, we collected 132 tonnes of e-waste, 100% of which was recovered and refurbished in conjunction with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Centre, the e-waste handler certified by the National Environment Management Authority of Kenya (NEMA). Waste to dumpsite generates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas which is estimated by the US Environmental Protection Agency to have a global warming potential 27-30 times greater than that of carbon dioxide over 100 years 4 . In addition to our e-waste partnership with WEEE, we also have several recycling partnerships in place for paper, glass, metal, construction materials and organic waste. As indicated in the pie chart below, a very small percentage, 1.4% of waste generated was taken to dumpsite and 2.1% incinerated. This was comprised of infectious waste (facemasks) and diapers, as there is currently no technology available to treat this waste stream. Most of the waste collected was reused and recycled. Total e-waste collected and recycled contributed to 57.7% of the total waste collected and recycled. The remaining 38.8% was attributed to the office waste reused, recycled and compost. Single-use plastics have been identified as one of the major contributors to environmental degradation and pollution. Against this backdrop, one of our key highlights was the total elimination of single-use plastics in retail shops. This • Successful uptake of technology solutions to reduce paper consumption. • 100% compliance with regulations relating to plastics, air quality and noise levels • 16 data centres and offices licensed by NEMA for generator operations. • Increased our CDP climate score from C to B. • Signed a collaboration framework on a forest strategy with Kenya Forest Services. • Successful ISO 14001 surveillance audit and ISO 50001. • Eliminated all single-use plastics in retail shops. • Acceleration of solar deployment to 1 432 sites, resulting in over 370 tCO 2 e annual avoided. • Increase in the number of free cooling units across the network. • Creation of real-time dashboards to reflect the status of our waste and environmental audits. • By increasing the frequency for waste collection from our facilities from one week to two weeks, we achieved cost savings of approximately KSh 2.8 million. • 1.3 million trees grown in 1 300 hectares of public degraded forests, directly impacting 2 000 livelihoods. • Our CEO played a prominent role in advocating for climate action at COP27, with a key highlight being the Africa Business Leaders’ Climate Statement SDG GOALS OUR HIGHLIGHTS We progressed our commitment to SDG7 through our accelerated deployment of solar. We continued to partner with various stakeholders (SDG17) to drive responsible environmental actions and contribute to a circular economy (SDG12). ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP 4 https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials WASTE COMPOSITION Waste to landfill Waste to incineration Office waste recycled, reused & compost E-waste collected & recycled 1.4% 2.1% 38.8% Total Waste 228 619kgs 57.7%