Hi, everyone, and welcome to KPN's Virtual ESG Webinar 2021. We're here at our headquarters in Rotterdam, and it's great to see that so many of you joined us online via webcast. Let me run through today's agenda. First, our CFO, Chris Figee, will take you through a 30-minute presentation, providing you with insights on how sustainability is embedded in our strategic focus for the coming years. The presentation can be found on our investor website. After the presentations, we will move to your questions. Please note that you can ask questions throughout the entire presentation by submitting them using the box in your screen. Two core CSR team members, Brechtje Spoorenberg, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, and Jeroen Cox, Strategic Lead, Energy and Environment, will join Chris for the Q&A session.
Now, as usual, before turning to the core of our presentation, I'd like to draw your attention to the safe harbor included on slide 29 of this pack, which also applies to any statements made in this presentation. Well, it's time to start. I would like to give the floor to KPN CFO, Chris Figee.
Thank you, Reinout, and welcome to our ESG webinar, and thank you all for connecting to this webcast. I hope you and your families are healthy. ESG, or CSR as we call it within KPN, is becoming an ever more important topic in society and international capital markets. Over the past decade, we've positioned ourselves as one of the world's greenest telecom companies, driven by our belief that sustainable business is simply better business. This is reflected by early adoption of the integrated annual report, our management remuneration linked to sustainability, and several leading positions in well-respected ESG benchmarks. The core of our strategy is that we're speeding things up in line with society's need for digitization. Expanding our fiber network is a central element of this strategy. With this, we connect everyone and promote social and digital inclusion. We do this in the most sustainable way.
By implementing circular operations and services, and by working more energy efficiently, we already have been able to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and grow our ambitions as we aim to be net zero in the entire value chain by 2040. Our commitment to sustainability is evidenced by integrating sustainability into our financing strategy, as we recently showed with our successfully issued sustainability linked bonds and our RCF. ESG, of course, covers a wide area of subjects. For this presentation, we primarily focus on our own business operations. I will start with some insights on how ESG is embedded in our strategy, followed by the long-term impact we intend to create. We focus on each of the following three sustainability goals, innovation, society, and environment.
Digitalization is a catalyst for the country's economic development and offers significant opportunities to address the social and environmental challenges of our time. Digital connectivity is able to help solving social challenges and ultimately result in stronger economies, and higher living standards, and more opportunities for everyone. Therefore, beyond the direct impact that we make with our core business, we also have an impact on society. In this regard, our business model is fully focused on delivering direct results for various stakeholders. We mentioned three important groups here. Our employees, our customers, and of course, our shareholders. In this context, we've identified three of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, that we believe we can contribute to most as an employer, as a business partner, and a telecom services provider.
We give strong support to these UN Sustainable Development Goals and have aligned our strategy to the three core SDGs summarized in this figure. In numerical order, we focus on SDGs 9, 11, and 12. We want to create a society that's connected and safe and resilient by offering best-in-class connectivity and security services, which relates to SDG 9, industry, innovation, and infrastructure. We provide access to everyone and stimulate digital and social inclusion, contributing to SDG 11, sustainable cities and communities. Finally, we work towards being a close to circular company and want to save energy despite a steep increase in data usage. Both relate to SDG 12, responsible consumption and production. Of course, these three goals are all interconnected. Our SDG or ESG organizational structure is visualized in the following pyramid structure.
ESG teams are defined and approved by the board of management, including our ambitions and KPIs. Every ESG team is assigned to a member of senior management who, as a team owner, is responsible for stakeholder dialogues, for targets, for progress, and results. Each team owner heads a committee consisting of management of the key departments involved in a specific team. The team owners link to KPN's CSR manager, who is responsible for the overall reporting approach and overall cohesion. Our CSR manager reports to the Director of Corporate Communications and CSR, who in turn reports to the CEO and the Board of Management. Two of our leading CSR advocates and managers are here with me today and answer questions. Our strong commitment to sustainability is evidenced by our executive remuneration policy, which is tied to our sustainability ambitions.
15% of our STI, our short-term initiative or incentive, is based on NPS, and 15% is based on employee engagement. For our long-term incentive plan, our LTI, 15% is based on reputation and 50% on circularity. Over the past decade, we made a conscious choice to be a front runner in sustainability, and we've achieved some important milestones in this respect, as you can see on this slide. We are one of the first telcos to link management compensation to sustainability. We've been using 100% green electricity since 2011, and being climate neutral for our own operations since 2015. We attach great importance to diversity in our workforce. Since last year, we are proud to have 30% women in both our board of management as well as our supervisory board.
Our future ambitions are even more challenging as we aim to have at least 30% women in our senior management 2023 from a current base of 26%. In 2025, we aim to have almost 100% circular operations, while being net zero in our whole value chain by 2040. To realize our ambitious targets, we proactively engage with our suppliers on carbon reduction in the value chain and collaborate in industry groups for reliable reporting. We are also active in several working groups initiated by NGOs, and participate in or liaise with organizations to address climate change and human rights issues. To give you some examples, KPN is a member of the Joint Audit Cooperation, the JAC, an association of 17 telecom operators which represent roughly 40% of the entire industry.
Together with other members, we strive for standardization of social and environmental criteria, including criteria related to promoting a circular economy. Within the JAC, KPN chairs working groups focused on living wages and circular economy. We're also a member of the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association, the ETNO, which is a trade group with a membership of 14 major telecom operators, and the association represents members' interests on issues ranging from economic regulation to data protection and privacy, as well as environmental sustainability. Within the ETNO, KPN is vice chair of the working group focused on sustainable developments. Our commitment to sustainability is evidenced by several important independent ESG benchmarks. For example, in 2021, we maintained our AAA MSCI rating and platinum status with EcoVadis. We also have been on the A List of CDP for seven times in the last ten years.
Early November, we were recognized as a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the tenth consecutive year. Looking back over the past 10 years, KPN is the only telco that was mentioned every year, 10 years in a row. These benchmarks are not only useful for comparison with peers, but also make KPN a particularly attractive priority for investors, for large corporate clients, and other stakeholders. Next, we will focus on each of the three following SDGs. 9, 11, and 12. Innovation, society, and environment. Our first focus SDG is linked to innovation. As indicated, we see several industry trends underpinning the need for next generation fiber and mobile network infrastructure, and that is exactly what we offer. Every day, we go all out to connect everyone. Next to this, because our customers are connected 24/7, they're also sensitive to data leakage and abuse risks.
We want everyone to enjoy the benefit of connectivity without having to worry about the information security or infringement of privacy. Therefore, trust in our ability to safeguard privacy and security is one of our core assets, and is crucial to the long-term value creation of our business and of society. Expanding our fiber network is a central element of our strategy. Every year, we invest about EUR 1 billion, or more than EUR 1 billion, in Dutch infrastructure, more than any other private company in the Netherlands. Out of this, over EUR 600 million are direct investments in our hard network infrastructure, fiber and mobile. We rolled out more than 400,000 additional fiber households in the last 12 months, and today we cover almost 40% of the country with fiber.
By 2026, we target together with Glaspoort, our joint venture with APG, to cover 80% of the Netherlands with fiber. Alongside expanding our fiber network, we're also continuously upgrading our mobile networks. Next year, the vast majority of the Netherlands will be covered by our renewed 5G ready network. This makes us ready for a data flow to the future, enabling new use cases, virtual reality, gaming, connected cars, drones, smart cities, and smart factories, among many others. The result will be a strong boost to the digitization of society, while at the same time reducing energy usage. As we connect everyone, it's of utmost importance that we have secure data networks and systems, so that personal information remains confidential and important data remains accessible.
Over the past few years, we've created strong foundations for robust security procedures at KPN, which makes us more resilient and better able to identify and respond to new threats at an early stage. We continuously assess how we can improve the privacy protection of our systems. We make adjustments if necessary, for instance, when we launch new products and services such as 5G and fiber networks. We also help our customers to protect their own networks. KPN Security is the largest provider of IT security services in the Netherlands, helping sectors which are increasingly vulnerable to security threats these days. To give you a few examples, in recent years, KPN Security teamed up with the FBI, Europol, and several other agencies to stop criminals behind devastating ransomware.
KPN is also part of the Cyber Security Council, the CSR, and our CEO, Joost Farwerck, is a core member of the council. This council is an advisory body to the government, committed to increasing cybersecurity in the Netherlands. We're also part of the CIP, the Centre for Information Security and Privacy Protection, a partnership with the government in which knowledge exchange and experiences are exchanged. As cybercrime has a huge impact on our society and economy, we organize NL Secure, the biggest cybersecurity conference in the Netherlands, bringing the security community together. We participate in hackathons and share our knowledge with the national police in the field of cybersecurity.
We are constantly building on our experience of exploring new technologies and societal trends to identify innovative opportunities, enabling us to meet new customer demands and to help further digitalize our society in a responsible way. On this slide, we highlight some of the innovations in the field of safety and sustainability, which can have great value to society. As the boundary between work and personal life, for example, is becoming increasingly more blurred, KPN developed Home Office, a hybrid working place that allows for a more flexible way of working within the same digital secure working environment as home as in the office. After all, most of our business clients effectively no longer have one head office, but hundreds of them. This is basically a B2B2C proposition that caters to a real need for secure and safe remote.
secure and safe remote working environments. This year, we also introduced the KPN PIM app for easy identification. This PIM app enables people to provide proof of identity in a simple way using their smartphone while personal data are optimally protected. Finally, last year, we launched our Health Exchange, a new software-as-a-service platform facilitating the data exchange between hospitals and other health institutions in a secure way. Moreover, in collaboration with other reputable institutions, we are looking to expand our data exchange offering beyond healthcare to enable effective and secure data exchanges in various industries. We'll now focus on our second SDG, society, providing Internet access for everyone and everything. KPN is at the heart of the Dutch society. Our goal is to ensure that everyone can benefit from ICT regardless of their location, ability, or age. We provide Internet access for all.
With this, we connect everyone and promote social and digital inclusion. We promote diversity across KPN, and we strongly believe that diversity enhances creativity and can help companies to be more effective and efficient. We do this by investing in several initiatives. For example, we invest in people networks and organize events, especially for women, to provide an internal platform where women can expand their network, share stories, and inspire. Our ambition is to have at least 25% women in our workforce by 2022 compared to 21% this year. We also strive for more visibility and inflow of bicultural talent and an inclusive culture by inspiring colleagues to gain knowledge and awareness of cultural backgrounds and rituals as customs belong to these backgrounds. In this context, we recently joined the Agora Network, a Dutch nonprofit organization promoting cultural diversity in companies and other organizations.
Next to a diverse workforce, we want to include everyone. That's why we launched the KPN Mooiste Contact Fonds in 2007. This foundation supports vulnerable groups by harnessing the power of technology to facilitate human contact for those with the highest risk of social isolation. On this slide, we highlight some of our initiatives, so that everyone can participate in a self-sustainable way. For example, through our Klasse Contact project, we connect thousands of housebound, chronically ill children to their classroom with an IT device in their classroom, the KPN Klasgenoot. With the device of the children, they can continue to follow their class at school and stay connected with their classmates. Next to this, as its main sponsor, KPN makes the Rijksmuseum collection accessible to everyone globally, in the Netherlands, both in the actual museum and online.
To ensure that art remains accessible and appealing to younger generations, KPN supports the Rijksmuseum in making all the museum's artwork available to view online for free in high resolution. As highlighted, KPN strives to connect everybody and everything in a sustainable way. KPN is already one of the greenest companies, and to maintain its position, we've set ambitious goals for the future. To achieve net zero before 2030, much attention is focused on reducing energy-related carbon through effective and renewable energy. However, this will only get us halfway. By changing the way we do business, looking at alternative business models and product services, supply, distribution chains, much can be achieved. This is where the circular economy becomes a key component of our journey to become net zero.
We want to be almost 100% circular in 2025, and in short, this means that we strive for infinite use of products and materials. The first step towards becoming circular is to make sure that all our suppliers we do business with comply to our KPN Supplier Code of Conduct or have their own equivalent code. This code helps ensure that all of our suppliers are committed to running their business in a manner that's ethical, legal, and environmentally friendly, and respectful of human rights and socially responsible. A second step is preserving resources and therefore promoting longevity. Together with our suppliers, we implement sustainable solutions, which would result in cost reductions as well as reductions in energy and material use.
This can be done, for example, through smarter product design, the use of recycled materials, extending the life of products, and better recycling at the end of the product's life. In this respect, in 2019, KPN has been using so-called Product Circularity Reports to gain insights into the degree of circularity of products that we specify from our suppliers. For commodity products, we rely on life cycle analysis provided by our suppliers. Finally, as part of our tender processes, we also carry out sustainability checks. For example, we use the integrated EcoVadis scorecard in all our tender processes. This is an evaluation of how well a company has integrated the ESG principles into their business and management system. As such, we also collaborate with industry groups with significant sector impact on reliable reporting. Let me provide an example of the Product Circularity Report.
In building a new device, Fairphone was the first smartphone supplier to collaborate with KPN on such a report. The report provides an overview of the key circularity characteristics of this product, such as a statement of materials used, and features of the product design. Based on this data, Circular IQ and KPMG analyze the degree of circularity of a product, its carbon footprint, and make recommendations for further improvement. With each report, we gain a better understanding of the circularity of our own operations, and thereby encourage innovation among our suppliers. By focusing efforts on the lifetime extension and recycled content, the carbon footprint could be lowered to about 30% per unit. The following chart shows our energy consumption compared to data communication growth. What you can see is that we have been able to reduce our energy consumption despite an exponential rise in data traffic.
The main contributors to this are network modernization and simplification programs. The following slide provides an overview of our carbon footprint. It's important to highlight that our own operations constitute less than 25% of KPN's total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Our emissions in an entire value chain represent about the other 75%. Furthermore, for our own operations, i.e., Scope 1 and 2, we're climate neutral since 2015, as we use 100% green electricity and compensate for emissions from our buildings and petrol cars. CO2 savings for customers using our ICT services almost doubled in 2020 compared to the previous years. This is mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By using our cloud services, video conferencing, and audio conferencing, our business customers were able to meet online, reducing the need to commute and use office space.
Using these services helped our customers avoid about 570 kilotons of CO2 emissions, and to save around EUR 330 million in energy costs, mostly related to reduced car fuel consumption. We will now focus on how we intend to further reduce our energy consumption and footprint. By 2030, we aim to reduce our energy consumption by 55% compared to 2010. Furthermore, KPN commits to reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by about 100% by 2030 from 2010 as a base year, so without compensation for our car fleet. Our long-term target for Scope 1 and 2 is to maintain yearly zero emissions from 30 to 50, excluding any compensation. i.e., zero emissions from 2030 to 2050 excluding compensation.
As part of this ambition, we are modernizing our networks as we are phasing out older generation technologies. In addition, we are migrating to cloud solutions. A pilot case on server eco mode shows a further potential of 7% energy savings on top of already virtualized servers. Going forward, we expect further savings will come from our fleet transformation program and deployment of more energy efficient equipment. As highlighted, most of our emissions relate to the value chain, i.e., Scope 3. Our targets are to reduce our absolute Scope 3 emissions by 20% in 2025, 30% in 2030, and 50% by 2040 compared to base year 2014.
These targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative in April 2017, and are consistent with reductions required to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. To achieve these targets, we are actively engaging with our suppliers for carbon reduction in the value chain. Together with our suppliers, we're implementing sustainable solutions which will result in additional cost reductions, as well as reductions in energy and material use. We are introducing energy saving features for customers using our equipment, for example, modems and TV receivers. Finally, we are reviewing international and local transport modes on our products and reducing business travel. As you can see, much of the Scope 3 reduction is achieved by changing the way we do business.
This is exactly why the circular economy becomes a key component of our journey to net zero. Finally, we'd like to point out that we've taken full notice of the new EU taxonomy. While we are still reviewing the structure and substance of this, our current perception is that telco's contribution to society is not yet captured by this framework. We contribute a lot to making the Dutch society more durable and sustainable, but at this point, narrow classification of the EU taxonomy makes this a particularly less effective reporting tool. Of course, we'll stick to reporting requirements and include this taxonomy in our annual report, but not amend our policies and way of working. We hope that the taxonomy can be amended in the future and be made more suitable for a broader range of industries. We put our money, of course, where our mouth is.
In August this year, we concluded a EUR 1 billion revolving credit facility with an interest rate linked to three strategic sustainability targets. This year, last month, KPN successfully issued its inaugural sustainability linked bond. The issue is linked to our commitment to reduce value chain emissions. Needless to say, we are really excited about integrating sustainability into our core financing sources, which besides lowering the cost of debt, also shows our strong commitment to sustainability and KPN's ambition to contribute to climate change mitigation. Before we move to questions, let me briefly wrap up the key highlights of our ESG webinar. As we told and we discussed, sustainability forms an integral part of our culture and values as we are responsible for societal and environmental impact we have on Dutch society.
Every day we go out to connect and include everyone and everything, and we do this in the most sustainable way. With this, KPN will not only grow mass market service revenues and deliver free cash flow, which enables KPN to continue its progressive dividend policy. It will also allow us to connect the Netherlands in a sustainable future. Thank you all for listening on our ESG strategy. Now please turn to your questions.
Thank you, Chris. We will start the Q&A in a minute. As a reminder, you can still ask questions in the box on your screen. Let's start with the first question. There's been two questions on the EU taxonomy. Has KPN looked at the alignment with the EU taxonomy? And if so, are you able to say how much of the group revenue and CapEx might be aligned? And if this will be reported in the 2021 annual report.
Well, of course, we've looked at this EU Taxonomy. We're still looking at it, actually, as a matter of fact, it's still part of our analysis. As we said, unfortunately, the Taxonomy has a quite narrow scope, narrow definition, so it's not easy to mold and fit KPN's activity in it. We will, of course, report it in the annual report, but it's not easy to capture the savings and sustainability contribution that we make in this very Taxonomy. Maybe, Jeroen, you have a little bit more details on that.
Yeah. Indeed, on revenues, it's not so easy to align with the taxonomy. I'd say on CapEx, depending on the definition of CapEx, we're looking at around maximum 2%-3%.
Yeah.
which is relating to leased cars
Yeah
and leased assets like customer premises equipment, which is more energy efficient than previous versions.
I think in the current Taxonomy, I mean, for example, fiber, we believe actually contributes to a more sustainable society, but it can be fitted into the definition of a Taxonomy as of yet. We believe we're doing the right thing. The Taxonomy doesn't capture the telco-specific investments fully, which is also resonated by our fellow colleagues in the other telecom companies.
Okay. The next question. Do you see yourself as more impactful on climate change or supporting social causes? What do you deem more important to KPN?
I think to start, I mean, our business is connectivity, so we are all out on connectivity. I think our prime goal is to connect each and everyone into society. At the same time, you have to do it in a climate neutral fashion. Our Scope 1, 2, and 3 ambitions to me are clear. The one is a real goal, a business goal. I mean, connectivity is where society's goals and KPN goals fully are aligned. When it comes to being climate neutral, that's the way we think one should do business and how we want to do business. Hey, Brechtje, you wanna add to that?
That's completely true. Yes. We think we need innovation and telecommunication to address the social issues that we have. That's where we put our efforts and we can contribute to beating climate change with our core business.
Okay. Next question. KPN has been using green energy for years. Can you share how much of a factor energy consumption plays in the selection of new equipment for KPN network during tenders?
Jeroen.
Yeah. We don't actually share the actual weighting for tenders, but we can share that we are weighing different decisions. One of the key decisions we've made in the past is, for example, our radio access network, where we actually compared site concepts of different vendors side by side to see what the energy level would be. We do not disclose the actual percentage that we weigh in decisions.
Okay. Next question. What is the share of Scope 1 and Scope 2 currently offset?
Scope 1 and Scope 2. Effectively, for Scope 1, cars, it's a relatively minor part. I don't know the exact number, but the majority of our cars are electric or biogas. For electricity, Scope 2, that's 100% green electricity. That's using guarantees of origin of Netherlands, Belgium, and European wind farms.
Yeah. When it comes to cars, we've just made a new order to really replace a big chunk of our fleet with energy-friendly cars. Those will be, you know, delivered, hopefully, in next year.
In 2020, the offset was 6%.
Maybe another follow-up, but also in terms of offset, how can you be net zero by 2040 if you still have Scope 3 emissions and will not be using offsets?
Well, effectively, I think any company will use some sort of offsets. I think the Science Based Targets initiative currently uses a norm of about 10% allowed to be offset in the end. Naturally, reduction is the primary strategy. It is by collaborating with suppliers on them using renewable energy and through circular economy principles that we will reduce our emissions and then ideally below 10%, compensate with verified carbon rights.
Yeah. You're already seeing that, part of our plans. Our total spend will go down significantly over time, CapEx and OpEx. Especially as our network investment will scale down, our costs are being saved. We'll spend less, and the stuff that we will spend will be with increasingly circular and climate neutral suppliers. I mean, that together would be a flywheel to dramatically reduce, you know, our carbon footprint and make us more, you know, Scope 3 efficient as well.
Yeah. Maybe sticking to Scope 3 here. What is the relationship between circular economy and Scope 3 emissions? How do they strengthen each other?
Yeah. When you look at reports by, say, Ellen MacArthur Foundation or Material Economics, they estimate on a worldwide basis that materials are 45% of the overall emission question. 55% renewable energy, 45% materials. That's basically the key relation between circular economy and overall emissions. By reducing the impact of materials, by extending the usage of equipment, and also by recycling and reusing as much as we can, we have a key contribution to reducing Scope 3 emissions.
Okay. A question on the relationship with the government and regulators. How has this changed through the pandemic? Can you give some explicit examples? Huawei technology risk is a key focus for the Dutch government and others. Can you tell us how you're approaching this? How much Huawei tech you still have in the network and whether this is being removed? Finally, I think a third question here. What do you think is the biggest ESG risk for EU telcos overall?
Well, I'll defer the latter question to Brechtje. I think he thinks about this risk all the time on broader risks. In terms of our relation with the government, I mean, the pandemic itself didn't change much in terms of sustainability focus. I mean, the government, of course, is, I think, pleased with the way we digitize our country. I think the fact that the Netherlands has been fully connected and better connected has helped our country navigate through this pandemic. I think there was a World Economic Forum report that the Netherlands went less deep into recession and came out of it relatively quickly due to this level of connectivity. When it comes to non-Western vendors, obviously, we follow and completely comply with government regulations. When it comes to non-Western vendors, we focus on what we can and cannot do.
We've got specific arrangement with the government. We have received some requirements from the government that we do not make public, but rest assured, we'll fully comply with those and phase out some of these non-Western suppliers if and where needed, and take the time as has been agreed upon with our government. In that respect, we are completely in full dialogue with the government on these non-Western vendors. We follow their guidelines, we comply with the law and phase them out over time, as we agreed with the government. When it comes to ESG risks, Brechtje, I guess you think about it all the time.
Yeah. I would choose cybersecurity. At this moment, this is within the society, a very big issue. It's also quite strongly part of our core business to keep the Netherlands safe, keep our own network safe, but also help our customers to keep their network safe. I would choose this one as the biggest impact. Of course, climate change is also a very big impact, and we do contribute to solving the issue, but it's not. I would choose cybersecurity first. We have strong mitigation methods to address this.
Okay. Next, question on ESG financing. KPN recently issued a sustainability-linked bond, and how was this received by your bond investors, and did you notice investor diversification?
I think it landed very well, and the bond was significantly oversubscribed. I think about three times oversubscribed in not an easy market. That's one. Secondly, from our perspective, we think we realized some financing savings, between five and 10 basis points of a lower new issuance premium. Thirdly, that's even more important. If I look at the constitution of the investor base, I think 30% was what I call deep green investors. A new investor base that really was focused on ESG only. If you think about the classic, the investor base that we had in this bond issuance, a third was traditional investors, a third was light green, and a third was real deep green ESG only. It led to really a remarkable diversification of investors.
It also showed, of course, in a significant bit of a pricing improvement compared to normal new issuance premiums. To me, success based on total size of the issuance, oversubscription, low new issuance premium, and about 30% of the investors were really new to us.
A follow-up question to, I think, one of the answers we've provided on the EU taxonomy. What efforts is the telco industry making in lobbying for a change in the taxonomy to reflect the benefits of industry investments in fiber and 5G?
You know about it, Jeroen?
Yeah. There's a working group in ETNO, a finance working group who is looking at this. One of their key recommendations, for example, is to include the rollout of the fiber network as fiber is more energy efficient than copper. This is actually one of the key recommendations of the ETNO finance group to the European Union.
Okay. Back to the Scope 3 emission target. What is the largest challenge in achieving your Scope 3 emission reduction target?
The largest challenge is in well, engaging effectively with international suppliers on reducing the overall emissions. This we do not do alone. As Chris mentioned, we are a part of the Joint Audit Cooperation. With that group, we are now looking at, you know, how should we engage with those larger international suppliers on this very big ambition. We see that, there's difference in ambition in terms of the pathway towards renewable energy. That's one. Another one is that we also collaborate on standards on circular economy and try to stimulate circular design and closing loops.
Okay. Another follow-up on the ESG financing. How do the proceeds of SLBs or potential SLBs or green bonds contribute to KPN sustainability strategy?
Well, to me, I mean, green financing is here to stay, and green financing to me is a broader term for financing links to sustainability. We now have a sustainability-linked RCF and SLB outstanding. We don't as yet have a green bond. I think in the coming years, we have a bunch of standard refinancings coming up. We've got a hybrid that can be redeemed. We've got some seniors that it needs to be refinanced. I would count on continuous use of what I call green instruments for financing. Could be in a green bond fashion. Could also be in an SLB, sustainability-linked bond way. I haven't made a decision which instrument exactly to use, but it's pretty clear that going forward, green will be material, if not the lion's share of our future refinancings.
Maybe in relation to that, can you discuss how a strong ESG score or strategy can bring real financial benefits or shareholder returns?
Well, look, I think, let me say a few things in general, maybe you can go up on a more strategic level. First, I think always our ESG, it's the way you run your business. It's what you actually do and how you want to do it, almost irrespective of the benefits, because it's the way you want to run your business. To me, it's all about being resilient and having a durable position in society. It's about having the right to play these days and not losing the right to play in our society. That's where you have to be sustainable. I can see immediate benefits in lowering the cost of capital, immediate benefits in attracting new talent, immediate benefit is simply saving energy costs.
The biggest benefit is, you know, being part of society allows you to play and continue your business. Brechtje, I guess you can also comment on it.
Yes, I completely agree. We see more benefits than just the financial benefits. Research shows these days that sustainable companies do better in terms of profitability and also continuity in the long run. That's also a factor that we take into account. I think you already mentioned attracting talent. We have, of course, a war of talent going on, and we see that young people these days prefer working for a sustainable company. We also see that increasingly customers prefer sustainable products. For different stakeholders, we see that there's extra value, added value in sustainable business, sustainable products.
A bit of a broader question. What sort of business models arise where the telco industry can be of help to reduce emissions in other sectors?
To me it is around, of course, connectivity in general. We believe by going all out to connect the Netherlands, both through fiber networks or 5G networks, those will enable new business models that I can't even imagine today. Our job is to make sure there's super fast, reliable connectivity to the Netherlands that others can use. I think there's a next wave possible with very low latency solutions. If you think about our own network, we have the potential to develop over time ultra-low latency solution to our clients, to our 160 Metro Core locations. If you think about edge computing, if there's any company in this country who can bring edge computing solutions, it's actually KPN. It's not there yet. The demand is not there yet.
If you look at the network that we're building today and the potential we have, you know, sufficient runway to provide super fast and reliable and distinctive connectivity for the years to come. With that, I believe, you know, business can thrive on that I can't even imagine. Specifically, I'd like to point out our work from home, but also example on data exchanges. We're now working on a Health Exchange, allowing healthcare institutions to exchange patient information very effectively and seamlessly. I believe data exchange between various sectors is a growth area for the future.
We're investing in that, and to me that's a business where connectivity, data usage, security, in a regulatory protected environment can do a lot of good by making your business connected, by sharing information, sharing data, and from that, new businesses will evolve. Brechtje, you wanna add to that?
Yes. That's true. We see also that. I'm sorry. Is it
Strategic implications.
Yeah. I was just thinking what to reply, but I'm sorry.
Never mind.
I can add to this. Another way of collaborating is in the EU as well. It's the European Green Digital Coalition. There we see actually that multiple sectors are. We will be able through digital solutions to create less impact on emissions. Like indeed traveling less, you know, staying at home rather than go to a hospital or more effective or more productive manufacturing processes, whereby it's you have through location services, you know exactly where a certain valuable assets are or in precision farming in agriculture. Indeed also cross sectoral as the example of working at home.
To me it's about, at a higher level, it's about KPN making remote interaction possible in every shape or form. Secondly, KPN enabling customers to be very data precise and data intense. You know, whether it's precise farming or data exchanges, or anything where people can use 5G to optimize their plans and report and monitor for failures or breakages early on. Those two elements, it's connectivity, remote interaction, and data intensive industries, where I think what we do can really contribute to a better society.
Energy transition is another important sector where digitization is key to to balance the whole grid. That's another example.
Yeah.
Yeah. The biggest one is in these remote working, remote monitoring. This last year, we managed to enable our customers to save that much energy and CO2 emissions, that it tripled our own energy usage in our network. This is the biggest one. Then of course, we have all the innovations on 5G, on newest technologies, which lead to new business model and, for instance, maintenance is also a good example, as we can do maintenance from a distance which is much safer for the people involved.
Okay. Two questions on cooperation with peers. One is: how do you collaborate with other telcos on circularity? The second, during the presentation, you mentioned the Joint Audit Cooperation. Can you provide a bit more color on how you cooperate, and does this fit in your Scope 3 emission reduction target?
Yeah. Actually we are chairman of a working group in a Joint Audit Cooperation on circular procurement. We have just actually done a supplier engagement event, I'd say two weeks ago, on sharing with our suppliers this new standard. It's a standard made by ITU, and it has 21 standard questions. You can imagine, you know, if all of us were thinking of our own questions on circularity, then it would become much more difficult for suppliers. They in turn also are in favor of standardization. Standardization is the key goal there, and having a more sort of leverage on that topic. There's other topics as well that we share in this community.
There's topics on human rights, on which Brechtje can elaborate, but there's also topics on climate change and Scope 3 measurements and various topics.
Yeah.
Maybe you could say a few words on human rights, Brechtje.
Yes. Yeah. The way we work together with Joint Audit Cooperation is that we together audit our mutual suppliers. In addition to auditing, we also try to improve the value chain together. One of the main issues that we address these days is human rights, which partly deals with living wage, partly deals with matters like the Uyghur matter in China, and also things like working hours. It's very broad and some things you can act upon directly. Some things require cooperation with other NGOs and governmental bodies.
It's very successful cooperations actually because the big benefit for the suppliers is that they only get one audit at a time on behalf of all the telecom companies. The big benefit for the telecom companies is they can learn from each other, they can exchange best practices, et cetera. We actually improved quite a lot in the value chain during the years because for every issue that we see, we make up a corrective action plan, and we really monitor the follow-up on this corrective action plan. During the years we managed to improve quite a lot actually.
Okay. Another question on Scope 3. Do you include CO2 from production or manufacturing of mobile handsets in your Scope 3?
Well, in general, we're not that precise yet in our current method. We currently use a spend-based method mostly. It's spend times conversion factors relating to overall emissions. That's about 78% of emissions. 2% relates to travel, so the way that stuff travels from China, so electronics from China to here and from here to local loop. Then finally, the energy settings of our in-home equipment. On the first one, we do try to become more specific on this. For example, I should note also the recent publication we did together with Fairphone on a product passport, whereby we did include a life cycle analysis in the different stages for us.
Production stage, transport stage, use phase, and recycling, and that's well worth checking out.
A question on the SDGs. In the context of the United Nations SDGs, why have you specifically chosen 9, 11, and 12? It seems that other telcos follow different SDGs.
Yes. Well, we actually take the United Nations sustainable development goals very seriously, and we act upon more than those three main SDGs. We chose those three because they are most closely related to our strategy. We don't have a separate strategy on sustainability. We have one strategy, and that's a sustainable strategy. This strategy mainly focuses on those three SDGs that we choose. Of course, we do a lot of actions on the other SDGs as well. For instance, reducing inequalities, good health and well-being. Those are also SDGs that we address. We thought that for today it's better to focus on the things that we make big.
That's why we included those three primarily in the strategy.
Okay, thank you, Brechtje. What policies does KPN have that will be relevant to mitigate ESG risks in your overall operations?
Well, we have a regular risk assessments. In this risk assessment also ESG risks are taken into account. They are checked up regularly. Like, for instance, we have a climate change assessment in which we assess what the water, the height of the.
Level.
The earth.
Levels.
Yeah. The sea levels and the rising water levels, how they could possibly impact our business. Also, for every issue that we see, each possible risk, we make mitigation methods which we follow strictly.
Yeah, to build on it, I mean, I think our risk analysis is key. We do a risk analysis on a very frequent basis. We discuss it in the board every quarter. These risks are particularly all sorts of, like, environmental risks, societal risks are in there. That gives it a very strong quarterly checkpoint on risks. We stress test them our activities, and then we've got specific initiatives, for example, on energy reduction, where we especially with the network business, where most of the spend is in energy we've got energy reduction targets that we actually monitor every, you know, every quarter. And some of these metrics are, of course, in STI and LTI, so short-term and long-term incentive programs. For me personally, it's reputation, it's circularity, it's employee engagement, it's NPS.
We've got metrics in our, you know, incentive programs. We've got a risk monitoring framework every quarter and specific initiatives of topics where we think those are relevant. For example, on energy consumption, which led to in recent weeks, us ordering a whole, like, new part of our car fleet. We knew our car fleet, and you and I spent lots of time together thinking through different alternative options, actually weighing the energy reduction versus cost, versus, you know, ease of use, and led to a specific decision. It's next to risk and incentives. It is specific initiatives and projects that we run to make KPN a more sustainable business.
Okay. Two more questions on the ESG financing. First one, in the context of the sustainability linked finance framework, why has KPN decided to focus exclusively on Scope 3 emissions rather than Scope 1, 2, and 3? And secondly, on the sustainability linked bond, who calculates the progress towards the SPT and how is the trigger for payment of the coupon step-up defined, i.e., in which cases will a step-up be paid?
Look, on the scope, we discussed this intensively, Scope 1 versus Scope 3. The kind of honest and slightly not modest answer is on the Scope 1 and 2, we already have made lots of progress. The delta on Scope 1 and 2 was actually not that big. Scope 3 delta was larger. We focused on that area where we had to do most work. We did this in conjunction with banks, with Sustainalytics, and we decided that the Scope 1 and 2 delta improvement were actually not big enough to warrant a specific SLB. Scope 3, of course, is where the action is. We focused the bond on Scope 3, also making life simpler. We've got one KPI that's a clear defining, you know, challenge for everyone to see.
We monitor this ourselves, and it's actually audited on an annual basis. As such, in the last years, the coupon of the bond gets a step up. I think it's 37.5 basis points per annum if we don't meet the specific targets. Jeroen, you wanna say more about that specific measurement process?
Yeah. The measurement process is part of the annual report, and it's under a limited assurance of our external auditor.
Okay. We have two more questions. Well, the first one is, during the presentation, you mentioned the EcoVadis scorecard. How will it help you to reach your Scope 3 emission reduction target?
Ooh.
I'll come back on the second after the answer.
That's why EcoVadis is now also has started also to include emissions as part of their as part of the certification. We will see actually when we see it, look at scores of our suppliers, how well they do on progressing on renewable energy. That's the way we can basically see how our supplier base is progressing.
Okay. The final question. How does the transition from copper to fiber and in mobile to 5G impact your energy consumption?
Well-
Sorry, it's a bit, there's a few questions. Sorry, Chris.
It's a quick question, yeah.
Will the higher energy required to support larger volumes of data traffic more than offset the energy efficiency gains triggered by the network upgrades?
I think, you know, in principle, the move from copper to fiber certainly is an energy saver. I mean, fiber has, I think, well, one-third or 40% of the energy use of copper. Yeah, data uses may go up. We think that before that the increase in data usage outweighs the saving of energy on a per meter basis. I think the fiber, you know, shift will help us save energy. On mobile from 4G to 5G, that actually may be an energy increasing project because actually that data use may not be easily as offset by the network itself. There we've got other strategies to make our network more modernized. Our new modernized network itself is more energy efficient.
We need to work hard to keep up with the data, with the increase in data consumption, data growth. When it comes to copper to fiber, I think the shift from copper to fiber naturally leads to less data usage. In all fairness, the jury is a bit out because I can't foresee, you know, predict what, how much data will grow. In principle, fiber will certainly lead to a saving. Network monetization will lead to a saving. It's easy to save from the copper to fiber than from 4G to 5G. I think all in all, we should be able to manage the data growth transition into energy. Then with sufficient offsets or other measures, we should be able to compensate for those.
Okay. Thanks, Chris, Brechtje, and Jeroen. That concludes the ESG webinar. Thanks for tuning in this afternoon. If there's any further questions, please contact the investor relations team. Thank you very much.