Deutsche Telekom is committed to sustainable business, protecting the environment and improving education. This was CEO René Obermann's message at the third Utopia Conference in Berlin.
"Burning climate protection and social responsibility issues can only be solved by working with, not against, businesses," explained René Obermann. "Deutsche Telekom is a pioneering company and makes a sustainable contribution to the environment, its customers and to education." The CEO gave cloud computing as an example. The technology enables customers to draw computing power and storage capacity from the Internet. Customers save having to invest in expensive IT infrastructure while at the same time reducing their power consumption and CO2 emissions. DT is one of the market’s leaders in this respect and intends to continue growing strongly, he said.
The Utopia Conference aims to establish a forum for experts from the business world, academia, the arts, and media. The goal is to connect ideas and thoughts to provide new approaches to protecting the environment and the climate, as well as to bettering society. "We want to lend an even keener interactive air to the Utopia Conference and turn it into a kind of work camp for sustainable development," explained founder, Claudia Langer. Alongside René Obermann, speakers at the event included human rights activist Bianca Jagger, German actor Hannes Jaenicke, and Renate Künast, Chairwoman of the German Green Party’s (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) Parliamentary Group.
With more than 65,000 members, Utopia is the largest Internet platform for sustainable consumption in Germany. DT has been working with the organization since April 2010 and was the first DAX 30-listed company to commit to the Change-maker Manifesto. In this voluntary undertaking, the Bonn-based telecommunications group sets out concrete objectives and measures for sustainable corporate management in ten categories. These cover areas such as waste reduction, energy efficiency, climate protection and social responsibility.