CASE STUDY
Huawei
Joining forces to achieve a
more sustainable network
Network products from Huawei help a third of the world communicate. And with Alex Deng at the Huawei
sustainability helm, care of the planet is already a high priority. But he was keen to go much further, faster.
An invitation to be an inaugural member of the BT Better Future Supplier Forum (BFSF) showed him the
way ahead.
Since then, Better Future Supplier Forum teamwork has inspired Huawei to set up its own sustainability
taskforce, cut its carbon footprint by 23,000 tonnes and, in the process, attain a BT Silver Status Sustainability
Award. Now Alex can envision Huawei as an industry green game-changer.
The BT BFSF is a win-win partnership for the two companies. It’s helped make significant
progress in ensuring sustainable growth is embedded in product development,
production, and implementation at Huawei. True sustainable growth can only
be achieved with a rigorous approach and close collaboration.
Alex Deng, Chief Sustainability Officer, Huawei
CASE STUDY
Huawei
Huawei has accelerated its focus on sustainability as a
founder member of the BT Better Future Supplier Forum
Tackling climate change
through teamwork
Step-by-step towards
sustainable success
Huawei products and solutions already serve more
than a third of the world’s population. They’re at
work in more than 140 countries, in the hands of
organisations – BT among them – that build and
run national and international carrier networks to
provide business and consumer communications
services and underpin IP-based applications like
cloud computing.
Like BT, Huawei was keen to transform not only
the sustainability of its own organisation, but
also of its complete supply chain. The step-bystep structured BFSF approach starts with the
application of best practice analysis tools and
techniques. These helped Huawei identify both
its areas of strength and of opportunity.
Always customer-centric in its approach,
Huawei has long recognised that sustainability
is a purchasing decision priority. It’s therefore
at the heart of everything Huawei designs,
manufactures and sells – and a key focus across
every one of its business operations worldwide.
So, when BT invited Huawei to join the BT Better
Future Supplier Forum (BFSF), Huawei jumped at
the chance to become a founder member.
Niall Dunne, BT Chief Sustainability Officer,
comments: “The new Better Future Supplier
Forum demonstrates how collaboration across
the supply chain can have a positive impact
on our shared environment. By encouraging
scrutiny of not only our own operations, but
also those of our partners and suppliers, we’re
able to offer more sustainable products and
services that help ensure we make a net positive
contribution for everyone’s benefit.”
The first step in this process was to benchmark the
company against ten key sustainability measures,
ranging from eco-friendly product design and
environmental management, to greenhouse
gas emissions strategies, and corporate social
responsibility policy.
Based on this assessment, Huawei decided to
create its own sustainability action team to work
side-by-side with BT people. Together they
identified areas where changes could make the
biggest impact in cutting carbon emissions. One
of these was to harness the power of Huawei R&D
resources and focus them towards sustainable
product development projects, specifically for BT.
In the first year of BFSF membership for Huawei, it
has already achieved some impressive results that
deliver both sustainability and bottom-line business
benefits. These include more than 23,000 tonnes
of carbon savings from changes implemented in
manufacturing, packaging, and logistics.
The company has also followed the BT lead by
spreading the word to its own suppliers, putting
sustainability high on the agenda of its annual
supplier conference, attended by around 360
senior employees from 174 companies. Using a
series of case studies to illustrate different aspects,
Huawei executives explained why sustainability
was vital to both its future and their own.
Since then, Huawei has gone a stage further to
deepen its sustainability collaboration with BT.
Huawei employees from both the UK and China
now regularly engage with BT counterparts, their
brief being to brainstorm ideas that could become
green game-changers for the world’s ICT industry.
Global recognition
In recognition of Huawei’s sustainability advances,
both in its own operations and its wider supply
chain, BT presented the company with one of the
first-ever BFSF Silver Status Awards.
Victor Zhang, CEO of Huawei, comments: “We’re
very proud to have been involved in the first year
of the BT BFSF and are delighted to have won this
award. Sustainability, efficiency, and the reduction
of carbon emissions are vital standards by which
we measure ourselves, so to be recognised by
such an important customer as BT is a powerful
endorsement of our efforts.”
We’re very proud to have been involved in the first year
of the BT BFSF and are delighted to have won this
award. Sustainability, efficiency, and the reduction of
carbon emissions are vital standards by which we
measure ourselves, so to be recognised by such
an important customer as BT is a powerful
endorsement of our efforts.
Victor Zhang, CEO, Huawei
About the BT Better Future Supplier Forum
Offices worldwide
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© British Telecommunications plc 2013.
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09/13
For BT the BFSF is an essential ingredient in a long term strategy to lead in sustainability by
encouraging and helping suppliers do the same. It’s all part of the company’s Net Good vision to
help society live within the constraints of our planet’s resources through our people and products
and associated goal to help customers reduce carbon emissions by at least three times the end-toend carbon impact of our business by 2020.
BT believes that a product or service can only be truly sustainable if the complete supply chain
is too – from one end to the other. So the Better Future Supplier Forum gives suppliers an
environment in which they can collaborate with BT to identify, collect, share, and implement best
practice on sustainability at every point in the lifecycle of a product. That runs from the sourcing
of raw materials through the manufacturing process, to the delivery of the finished product to the
customer, and maximum recyclability at its end of life.