What is the Group doing?
Faced with numerous CSR challenges linked to rare resources, the Group must ask itself a fundamental question: what strategy and what measures should be adopted to sustainably guarantee the integrity of its economic and social model faced with the inherent risks linked to rare resources?
To respond to this question, the Group set up a working group on rare resources in 2013. The working group involves all internal stakeholders concerned by the subject: the procurement department; legal department; CSR department; Group marketing; Oranges Labs Research, Products and Services Network; Orange France and Orange Consulting.
Bringing together internal stakeholders
The working group meets as a strategic committee every quarter, with a smaller monitoring committee also meeting every quarter. The aim of these committees is to collect and analyse all Group data on the subject and to define appropriate processes and actions in the event of a supply chain emergency.
First objective: to have an overview of the rare metals and minerals used in the Group and to assess the level of criticality of each one. Components which use rare and critical resources are used in all the handsets and devices sold to Orange customers as well as in the Group's network infrastructure equipment and IS. The use of these metals and minerals will increase as we modernise and renovate the Group's equipment to optimise operations and energy efficiency. "Free cooling" air conditioning systems, monitoring and consumption devices, passive network equipment, new generation servers, solar and wind generators, etc. all rely on the special properties of rare materials!
Knowing exactly what the Group buys
"Faced with this problem, it is essential that we know exactly what we are buying from our suppliers", explains Philippe Tuzzolino, Head of Environment. What is the weight, quality and cost of the materials used in each piece of equipment and what is our purchasing volume in terms of available global resources?" Risk and impact studies conducted under the aegis of the working group also examine the Group's procurement strategy and the use and management of equipment that has come to the end of its life cycle. "Thanks to this research, we have been able to create a regularly updated database of the all critical materials used in our activities", explained Philippe Tuzzolino.
This is key to helping us analyse the possibility of substituting at-risk resources, developing and optimising equipment recycling and better steering the Group's procurement strategy in relation to these findings.
Special clauses in contracts and specifications
Rare and critical materials are now subject to explicit references in specifications and codes of conduct (and contracts) sent to Group suppliers. We want to encourage suppliers to be transparent about the presence of these resources in their products as well as their origins and to promote recycling or substitution.
The Group provides its suppliers with tools to analyse their own risk exposure in terms of critical materials as well as sharing tools from sector bodies such as the International Telecoms Union (ITU) or the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GESI).
Finally, in the framework of the Joint Audit Cooperation (JAC) launched by Orange in partnership with operators in order to promote CSR with joint suppliers, audits now include specific questions on materials originating from conflict zones.
Working with manufacturers and public authorities
In addition to actions carried out internally and with other telecoms operators, the Group has also participated in major discussions involving the public authorities and industries from other sectors that are also reliant on these rare resources. Like the USA and Japan, the European Union has started to construct a community-wide strategy to secure the availability of raw materials necessary to the competitiveness of high-tech industries.
In France, the "Comité pour les Métaux Stratégiques- COMES (committee for strategic metals) was launched in 2011 to coordinate national initiatives on the subject. In addition to State representatives, COMES has 5 specialised research committees such as the CEA, CNRS and IFREMER, and ADEME of major raw material market stakeholders such as Eramet, Arevand and Rhodia, and other concerned manufacturers such Renault, EADS and Orange. The Group plays a key role, particularly by chairing the committee on substitution and by being a key contributor to the R&D committee on substitution, collecting and recycling.
Critical materials for Orange
The risk and impact study coordinated by the working group on rare and critical resources identified three categories of materials which need to be monitored carefully:
- 12 priority resources: gold, silver, tin, lithium, copper, cobalt, antimony, silicone, germanium, bismuth, graphite and nickel,
- "rare earths" and platinoids,
- materials found in conflict zones: tin, tungsten, tantalum and their derivatives.
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