In 2012, 52% of our operations submitted Carbon Disclosure Project reports (up 21% from 2011). This represents 86% of our business by revenue. We report our carbon footprint for 2012 was 1 040 722 tonnes, up 8.7% from 2011. We have also accounted for fuel costs and impact incurred by MTN Ghana, whose network has been outsourced (Scope 3). The largest areas of energy consumption and therefore greenhouse gas emissions are our network and base station sites, and data centres.

Although the number of reporting operations increased, material under-reporting by some of the largest MTN operations, and non-reporting by others, have led us to determine that our FY12 reported carbon emissions from energy use across all three Scopes is under-reported by as much as 38% for Scopes 1 and 2 alone. This year, some of the operations that submitted CDP reports only did so for Scopes 1 and 2; the exclusion of Scope 3 travel emissions and the impact on under-reporting has not been calculated.

As a result, we have not met our objective of setting the energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions of our 2012 business operations as the baseline by which to measure reduction efforts. Although we are actively using a number of solutions to reduce our use of energy and our greenhouse gas impact, we are unable to measure the results and direct financial and greenhouse gas reduction benefits. We are actively working to rectify this situation in 2013.

We know from our data, the largest areas of our energy consumption and therefore greenhouse gas reductions remain our network and base station sites, switches and data centres. We therefore continue to focus our efforts to reduce energy consumption and improve efficiencies here (in addition to technology and facility services which are also material energy consumers). We are also working to improve internal understanding of the financial, physical and regulatory risks and opportunities posed to our business as a result of our use of energy.

The top climate related risks to our business are being detailed as part of risk mitigation planning by our operations. These include increasing costs, increased flooding and higher temperatures in some countries, resulting in more costly and difficult maintenance cycles and fuel management, and increasing regulatory motions or activity in a number of countries, with respect to overall climate change.

We continue to investigate and implement mechanical, electrical and architectural solutions to our largest impact areas (network sites, switches and data centres), to improve energy efficiency, manage costs, and reduce overall greenhouse gas impact. These range from free cooling, improved efficiency of radio and data centre equipment, network upgrades, increased use of deep cycle batteries, and implementing hybrid diesel generator and battery solutions to reduce the use of diesel. Infrastructure consolidation, virtualisation and upgrades also ensure a greater degree of energy efficiency.

We continue to increase our use of solar power for our network sites. Wind power and, to a lesser degree, hydro-power, also remain sources of direct and indirect energy for our sites. More details on our latest activities can be located in the MTN Group 2012 Carbon Disclosure Report to be published on our website towards the end of May 2013.