Sustainability
Türk Telekom’s sustainability approach
The communication sector offers basic solution tools in the fields of economy, innovation, health, education, ensuring social equality, protecting the environment and combating the climate crisis, reducing emissions, improving quality of life and many more across the world. Thus, the sector also directly serves the global Sustainable Development Goals.
Türk Telekom considers creating value for its stakeholder as one of the key elements of sustainability in addition to attaining a strong financial performance.
Türk Telekom aims to contribute to a more liveable future by using technology in the process of transforming the country into an information society, and to create sustainable value for all stakeholders. To this end, the Company aims to strengthen the working environment with the Sustainability Management System for a long term, robust and successful business model, and to manage effectively the impacts of its activities on economic, corporate, environmental and social issues by monitoring them closely.
Having set out with the strategy of creating value for its stakeholders in the transition to the digital age, Türk Telekom operates with the ultimate goal of meeting the product and service needs of its stakeholders by supporting them to create value for the society. Based on this approach, Türk Telekom identifies the effects of its activities on sustainability in economic, corporate, environmental and social axes, and determines its policies in view of the expectations of all its stakeholders in these fields. The company shapes these policies in light of its responsibilities, obligations and duties towards the environment, its employees, all stakeholders and society.
Türk Telekom, which is one of the major actors of the transition to the information society, beyond just being a telecommunication operator, attaches importance to the principles and requirements of quality, environment, occupational health and safety and customer satisfaction management systems in all its business processes.
Türk Telekom takes utmost care to protect the rights of its stakeholders regulated by relevant legislation and mutual agreements with its strong corporate governance perspective in its operations and activities. On the contrary case, the Company ensures the protection of these rights as per the goodwill principles and Universal Human Rights within the limits of its capacity.
Türk Telekom holds a general approach towards Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) focus areas and principles. Carrying out its activities in line with the principle of “Accessible communication for all”, the Company commits to act in accordance with the 10 basic universal principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and takes the Sustainable Development Goals as its guide in its way of doing business.
Türk Telekom closely monitors its ESG scores by reporting to independent organisations that conduct national and international index and ESG assessments (BIST Sustainability Index, FTSE4GOOD, S&P Global, MSCI, Sustainalytics).
Türk Telekom takes all necessary measures to ensure data security by prioritising the personal data protection in all its internal and external business processes. As the number of the relevant persons and the diversity of processed data is high due to the nature of the telecommunication sector, the company conducts all its work with great discipline and awareness.
Sustainability Focus Areas
Our sustainability strategy centres our transformation process on our employees, their families, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. We aim to leave a healthy planet for future generations by adhering to sustainability principles in our business processes. We do not work with or finance individuals or groups that deny the existence of climate change. Furthermore, we commit to refraining from engaging in any activities opposing climate-related legal regulations. Within the scope of environmental sustainability, we are taking significant steps with our stakeholders. We reduce our impact on energy resources through energy efficiency projects and turn to alternative energy sources. In terms of social sustainability, we aim to increase society’s access to information through projects focusing on accessibility for all, digital inclusion, digital equality, and digital literacy. Our digital transformation projects focus on meeting customer expectations. We prioritise protecting the well-being of our employees and customers by taking precautions for their health and safety. Additionally, we conduct reporting in accordance with the principles of transparency and accountability adhering to a sustainable governance approach. We collaborate with local suppliers and place a large emphasis on job creation in order to support the local economy.
- Focus on Trust
- Focus on Climate Change and the Environment
- Focus on Customers
- Focus on Value for Human
- Focus on Contribution to Society
Sustainability Committee
In our sustainability governance, we aim to effectively manage the opportunities and risks associated with economic, environmental, social, and governance factors by integrating them into our company activities and decisionmaking processes, with the involvement and commitment of our senior management. By embedding sustainability principles at the core of our business strategies, we strive to manage ESG impacts as optimally as possible.
To enhance the effectiveness of our sustainability efforts, we have established a Sustainability Committee. Led by the CEO, the committee comprises of management representatives and reports to the Board of Directors. The Sustainability Committee is tasked with defining our company’s sustainability strategies, ensuring their integration into all business processes, working to achieve the targets, tracking these targets, and evaluating sustainability performance. We are in the process of creating sub-working groups to identify material topics and conduct operational activities in accordance with our sustainability policy . The Investor Relations and Sustainability Directorate manages our company’s overall coordination of sustainability and reporting efforts.