Sustainable Development Goals In order to successfully tackle global challenges, the member states of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The aim is to enable economic development and prosperity – in line with social justice and taking account of the ecological limits of global growth. The Agenda applies equally to all nations of the world. The core of the 2030 Agenda comprises 17 goals: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular, it seeks to reduce poverty and hunger, promote healthcare and education, enable equality, protect the environment and climate, and make consumption sustainable. Implementing the ambitious SDGs will require everyone to work together: policy makers, civil society, and business. As such, companies are also called upon to make concrete contributions with respect to their business activities. We are answering this call. Many of our products, services, and activities already allow us to make such a contribution. Our contribution to the SDGs also has a positive effect on the entire value chain at Deutsche Telekom. To enhance clarity, we divide these value contributions into the five subcategories – Finance, Structure, Relationships, Employees, and Environment. Deutsche Telekom’s value contributions For example, as a responsible employer, we greatly value employee participation and a working environment that is fair and respectful; we encourage diversity and support our employees on their journey toward the digital working world (Employees). In doing so, we also contribute to meeting SDGs 8 and 5. Our broadband network build-out makes an active contribution to creating and expanding high-quality infrastructure and promoting innovation (SDG 9), and at the same time strengthens our infrastructure (Structure). By consistently improving energy efficiency as we expand our network, and by delivering cloud-based services that enhance energy efficiency for our customers (Environment), we contribute towards SDG 13. Thanks to products and solutions like these, customers can conserve yet further resources and heighten the positive effects on the environment (SDGs 12, 14, 15). The build-out of our broadband network also gives a large number of people access to digital education media (SDG 4), while our e-health services improve medical care (SDG 3). At the same time, we generate revenue with these services (Finance). Smart city solutions promote sustainable living (SDGs 11, 17) and we implement them using new partnerships (Relationships). To clearly highlight the contribution our products, services, and activities make towards the individual sustainability development goals and our value chain, we have marked the relevant passages of the following pages with the respective SDG and contribution symbols.
