Creating transparency
We have been reporting on our corporate responsibility (CR) activities for more than 20 years: on our website, in our CR report, and in our annual report. Since the 2016 financial year, we have additionally explained how our core business contributes to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have been agreed as part of the 2030 Agenda.
For further information, please refer to the section “Sustainable Development Goals.”
Since the 2017 reporting year, we have published a non-financial statement (NFS) as part of the management report in accordance with § 289c to § 289e, § 315c in conjunction with § 289c to § 289e HGB. In selecting the issues to be presented in the 2023 NFS, we took the statutory requirements into account. In addition, since the 2021 reporting year, we have fulfilled the obligatory reporting requirements regarding environmentally sustainable economic activities in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 18, 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 (hereinafter EU Taxonomy): In the section “Aspect 1: Environmental concerns” we provide a breakdown of what percentage of our net revenue and also of our capital expenditure and operating expenditure for environmental objectives, for which criteria exist in EU legislation, is taxonomy-eligible or taxonomy-aligned. Deutsche Telekom makes a contribution to the environmental objective “Climate change mitigation” through its taxonomy-aligned economic activities. The requirements for transparency in corporate sustainability are constantly increasing. To meet these requirements, we have followed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards for our concepts and materiality analysis in this NFS, and our CR reporting additionally reflects other voluntary frameworks such as those of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). We are also getting ready for the forthcoming requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in a Group-wide, cross-divisional readiness project to align our future reporting with this legislation. 
We will publish detailed information on this in our 2023 CR Report.
The Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom AG is responsible for the review of the content of the NFS. It did this with the support of Deloitte GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft (external auditor) in the form of a limited assurance engagement. The two non-financial performance indicators “energy consumption” and “CO2 emissions” (Scope 1 and 2) are included as management-relevant performance indicators in the reasonable assurance engagement on Deutsche Telekom’s consolidated financial statements and the combined management report. The NFS engagement is based on International Standard on Assurance Engagements ISAE 3000 (revised). Unless otherwise stated, all disclosures in this NFS apply in equal measure to the Group and the parent company (combined non-financial statement). To avoid repetition within the management report, we refer to further information provided in other sections wherever relevant. References to disclosures not contained in the combined management report are provided as background information; these disclosures are not part of the NFS and thus are not covered by the engagement.
Our annual CR report supplements this NFS, meeting in full the requirements from a range of different stakeholders for substantiated accountability. The NFS is used by CR experts as an aid to rating Deutsche Telekom’s sustainability performance. In the reporting year, we have focused on combining ESG measures along the operating segments in the CR report so as to more clearly reflect the Group perspective. This will also prepare us for compliance with the CSRD requirements that will apply to us starting in the 2024 financial year.
The transparency of our reporting is acknowledged by external parties. In the reporting year, Deutsche Telekom’s sustainability reporting received the Building Public Trust Award in the DAX category for the most transparent reporting. The topics of taxonomy, climate goals, and CSRD readiness received special mention. For the best sustainability communication in the NetFederation CSR benchmark, we again ranked second in the reporting year with 815 points, 3 points behind first place and 97 points ahead of third place.