Etisalat (e&), stc Group, du, Zain, Batelco and Omantel sign major pact

stc Group, e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group), Zain Group, Batelco, du and Omantel signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the Mobile World Congress 2022, to accelerate cooperation to protect the environment, tackle climate change challenges as well as reduce the carbon footprint through their operations. This memorandum reflects the efforts of the GCC’s major telecom operators to improve the ICT industry and activate their roles in facing environmental challenges, focusing on climate change and advancing the regional sustainability agenda.

“This memorandum is an extension of KSA’s vision in strengthening partnership between all sectors to preserve and sustain the economic, social and environmental resources achieved by the Gulf countries for future generations,” said Abdullah Abdulrahman Alkanhl, chief corporate affairs officer, stc.

Salem Al-Mannai, vice president of Technology Infrastructure at e&, said: “Through this memorandum, the group seeks to strengthen its partnerships to confront climate change and make all possible efforts to motivate other sectors to join these endeavors aimed at accelerating the achievement of carbon neutrality in the possible time frame in addition to our commitment to the GSMA initiative; to move the entire mobile industry to carbon neutral by 2050.”

Jennifer Suleiman, Zain group chief sustainability officer, said: “Climate change and reducing our carbon footprint are material to Zain’s strategic objectives across our markets. This collaboration between like-minded operators is a transformative step towards advancing sustainability across the GCC and is in line with our sustainability ambition of providing meaningful connectivity leading to systemic change.”

Commenting on this cooperation, Shaikh Bader bin Rashid Al Khalifa, general manager Corporate Communications and Sustainability at Batelco, said: “Batelco attaches great importance to environmental sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint. We have started implementing initiatives in line with the company’s aims of becoming an environmentally friendly entity and achieve our corporate sustainability goals. Batelco’s most notable accomplishment is the launch of Batelco Solar Park, which contributes to the production of clean and renewable energy to support with running the company’s operations. We are eager to continue with our environmental initiatives to help create a more sustainable future.”

Saleem AlBlooshi, CTO, du said: “We, at du, recognise the crucial role played by ICT in strengthening the digital economy and ensuring long-term sustainable growth in the GCC region. We have put in place sustainability objectives that aim to guide us towards achieving our vision in alignment with the region’s leadership vision.”

Said Al Ajmi, vice president operations, of Omantel, said: “We are proud to be one of the first telecommunication companies in the region to issue a sustainability report covering performance in all these aspects, as we issued our first report in 2012, in addition, we launched several initiatives aimed at reducing our impact on the environment by building on the digital transformation and automation and benefiting from it, in developing and transforming our procedures and processes.”

Al Ajmi added: “We are pleased to sign this agreement with stc and the other Gulf telecom companies to exchange knowledge and experiences, emphasising our quest to preserve the environment and play the expected role in combating climate change and reducing the carbon footprint of our operations.”