43 Vodafone Group Plc Annual Report 2024
Strategic report
Governance
Financials
Other information
We contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals The UN Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDGs’) provide a blueprint for human progress and a clear call to action for businesses to contribute to a better future. The climate crisis, war and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises have meant that the world is facing a reversal of progress on many of the SDGs. At their mid-point, around half are off-track and over 30% have regressed or stalled. Under current trends, the UN estimates that 575 million people will be living in extreme poverty by 2030 and 84 million children will be out of school. Meanwhile, the world is at hunger levels not seen since 2005, the window to limit the rise in global temperatures is closing quickly, and it will take an estimated 286 years to close the gender gap. 1 Digital technology will be essential in reducing these impacts and helping progress towards delivering the SDGs. We are working to play our part and believe we can increase the speed and scale of delivery across a wide number of SDGs through leveraging our technology and services, and through partnering with others. Simultaneously, we can drive significant growth. For example, our M-Pesa and other mobile money plaforms, designed to enable financial inclusion, has 66.2 million active customers generating revenue this year of €351 million. Examples of our projects and initiatives supporting the SDGs over the last year Read more about our contribution to the SDGs: vodafone.com/sdgs No poverty Our ‘everyone.connected’ campaign in the UK has delivered over £163 million in social value since May 2020 to December 2023, helping customers deal with the increased level of poverty due to cost-of-living increases. Read more about our approach to the cost of living: vodafone.com Good health and wellbeing In Portugal, we introduced an innovative solution called Hospital@Home. This remote patient-monitoring solution enables healthcare professionals to monitor and clinically evaluate vital patient data, including blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose and more. Quality education
Our IoT solutions help local governments take control of their energy usage across multiple sites, improve air quality via monitors and optimise waste collection. Read more about our digital solutions to build sustainable cities: vodafone.com/sustainable-business We are a co-founder of Eco Rating, a pan-industry eco-labelling consortium for newly manufactured smartphones. We operate Eco Rating in 11 markets with over 275 handsets assessed and available to our customers. Read more about Eco Rating for mobile phones: vodafone.com/eco-rating In Africa, we enabled the implementation of the first-of-its-kind virtual wheeling solution in South Africa with Eskom. This will help accelerate efforts to solve the country’s energy crisis and contribute to Vodacom’s renewable energy targets. We also delivered a first for Egypt, where the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Energy will match the electricity used by the Vodafone Egypt mobile network with electricity added to the grid from renewable sources. Read more about reducing GHG emissions in our operations: vodafone.com/sustainable-business In 2024, 32 new Instant Network Schools were deployed, taking the total number of schools in operation to 118, with over 274,000 students and 4,700 teachers having benefited from the programme. Read more about how Vodafone is providing digital learning through connected education: vodafone.com Vodafone Foundation’s Bright Sky app and website is live in 13 countries, connecting nearly one million people affected by domestic violence and abuse to information, advice and support. Read more at: www.vodafone.com/vodafone-foundation
Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Partnerships for the goals
We enable inclusive and sustainable digital societies At Vodafone, we are accelerating connectivity and digitalisation in order to achieve the SDGs by 2030. We have identified two priority SDGs (SDG 9 Build Resilient Infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation, and SDG 17 revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development) that will enable us and our partners to find lasting solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges and thereby accelerate the delivery of other SDGs. The SDGs will only be achieved through partnerships, and we continue to pioneer new models of co-operation between business, governments, international organisations and civil society to deliver progress and scale. For example, we were a founding member of the International Telecommunication Union’s Partner2Connect coalition to connect the unconnected. In FY24, our partnership in Ethiopia with Safaricom PLC, Vodacom, Sumitomo Corporation and British International Investment received a major boost with news that the World Bank Group, one of the world’s major development finance institutions has invested in the business. Together with its partners, Safaricom Ethiopia has committed to help meet Ethiopia’s SDGs and improve the agriculture, medical, education, financial and tourism sectors of the country by rolling out, launching and operating 4G and 5G mobile networks across the entire country – including in rural and urban areas. We continue to develop our partnerships to address environmental challenges. For example, our major global partnership with WWF will support our goals to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2040 and encourage a more circular economy for mobile phones.
Gender equality
Affordable and clean energy
Sustainable cities and communities
Responsible consumption
Through connectivity infrastructure, digital innovations and partnerships, we deliver impact across many of the SDGs.
Note: 1. UN, 2023.
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