WITH A COMMITMENT TO CREATE LONG-TERM VALUE FOR ITS STAKEHOLDERS, AIRTEL’S CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY CONTINUES TO EVOLVE, PROVIDING AGILE RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES THAT IT FACES AT AN ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL LEVEL.
Every two years, Airtel conducts a materiality assessment exercise to re-evaluate and prioritize the material topics, which guide our corporate sustainability strategy. A comprehensive exercise was undertaken in 2017-18 to assess our material topics in accordance with GRI Standards and guided by Account Ability’s AA1000 Principles Standard (2018). This included an extensive stakeholder engagement survey to capture the expectations of our stakeholders, along with an evaluation of the major risks identified through our risk management process. This resulted in identification of a set of material topics.
The material topics were evaluated in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, emerging global trends and our overall corporate business strategy. Further, review of industry best practices, benchmarking of our performance, evaluation of our risks and opportunities and insights from stakeholder engagement were leveraged, to undertake a holistic review of our material issues.
The identified material issues were then prioritized based on the topics of significance to our stakeholders as well as the management, which are listed below. They are addressed through various strategic interventions and guide informed decision making at Airtel. Further, we continually monitor the major channels of dialogue with our key stakeholders, which enables us to seek their feedback and monitor the impact of our interventions.
- Enhancing Customer experience and satisfaction
- Climate change and carbon emissions of telecom infrastructure
- Digitalization and innovative service offerings
- Customer Data protection and security
- Enhancing Network quality (reliability and availability)
- Sustainable Community Development
- Collaborative long term supplier/partner relationships
- Product and Service quality
- Ethical and transparent businesstransactions
- Resource optimization and waste management
- High standards of Corporate Governance
- Improving Employee engagement and development
- Digital inclusion and access
