Zubaria is an environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility professional. She has 15 years consulting and industry experience, with Courtaulds, Enviros Aspinwall, Ernst & Young, Orange/France Telecom and Vodafone Group. Working with senior management, trade associations, regulators, local and national government, EU, UN bodies, she is used to aligning corporate and social responsibility programmes with board level business objectives. She has advised energy, financial services, media, pharma, chemical, engineering and telecomms companies about sustainability and climate change. Zubaria has also served on several industry committees, and written or contributed to several key papers.

What projects are you currently working on?

"Acting as a responsible business is one of our six strategic goals and therefore limiting our contribution to climate change is a clear priority for us. The greatest amount of energy is used in the maintenance of our network therefore my aim is to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible. To achieve this I work on a number of initiatives across the business including establishing realistic energy targets for our operating companies, establishing an audit procedure in order to monitor compliance, working with network suppliers to improve the energy efficiency of our new equipment and adopting higher standards for our air conditioning equipment."

What is your personal, proudest "green" achievement?

"I think my biggest green achievement is to be part of a team which is able to guide a business along an environmental path which is right for them and their sector. For example at Vodafone we have established a recycling initiative across all our markets. Given we have 16 local operating companies across varied geographies and cultures this is a real achievement. It is aimed at staff and customers and is a handset recycling initiative. We recycle paper from our offices; 97% of our network waste was recycled in the 2007 financial year."

What are the key ingredients of a successful low carbon initiative in any sector?

"I think it is important to understand where you start from and what it is possible to achieve. At Vodafone our first challenge was to produce an audit of our activities across all our markets so that we can monitor improvement. It is also important to prioritise so we first looked at our energy emissions and are continuously working on how to reduce these. We are also exploring ways in which to increase our use of renewable energy. Finally we are looking at ways in which our products and services can help our customers reduce their impact on the environment."

What are the biggest challenges you face in your role and how do you deal with them?

"The biggest challenge I face is how to get people to act without feeling guilty. I think the view here is that our approach to encouraging people to care more about the environment should be more positive and empowering rather than negative and guilt inducing.

"I am confident that we can all make a difference to the environment and think it is possible to drive positive change so people can feel empowered to work together on this issue."

How do you encourage customers and staff to become more environmentally conscious - how do you crack the 'hardest nuts?'

"We believe in sustained communication. We have for example been recycling phones in the UK since 2002 and any customer who has come into our stores or has a contract with us will have received information on how to recycle their phone. We also think you have to communicate with people in a way which is accessible to them

"For example, in the UK we have just launched a recycling initiative with Global Cool. This uses celebrities such as actress Sienna Miller to help communicate the environmental message and simple actions individuals can take which, when taken as a whole, will reduce the amount of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. We have used Sienna to promote our handset recycling initiative in a number of ways through print material, on all our recycling bins in store and for PR purposes. These celebrities are key to driving awareness in our core customer group, which is aged 18 - 28.

"Internally we work hard to ensure that awareness about the environment is maintained. We have regular internal campaigns, the most recent of which is a climate change intranet site which helps people work out what they can do to limit their personal emissions The site explains the issues around climate change and it also has a online quiz which helps you as an individual measure your carbon footprint and then provides suggestions on how to reduce your impact - its called the Climate Challenge. The suggestions are fairly simple to implement, eg energy efficient light bulbs, advice about insulation of your home and driving. The intranet site also outlines what we as a company are doing to reduce our carbon emissions."

What emerging trends do you predict?

"Climate change is clearly becoming more main stream. It is no longer an issue peripheral to the business and therefore I would imagine we will see the continued development of products and services as companies start to respond and help their customers to respond to the environmental challenge."

What advice would you give to someone starting out in a similar role to yours?

"Whatever else you do make any recommendations you have relevant to the business you work in."

Best Practice Tips

Please visit the Forum here and share a tip that you have for organisations to reduce their carbon emissions. Often the very simplest ideas can have the greatest effect:

• "After publishing your company's CSR report, encourage readers to complete a feedback questionnaire. This way people can let you know whether the subject matter meets their requirements, and whether they would like any additional information next year"
  (Cathy McGarvey, Environmental Coordinator, Pennon Group PLC)
  

• "Monitoring actual readings of carbon and cost savings taken after the installation of technology provides investors and the board with real time figures and helps highlight possible areas of improvement"
  (David Roberts, Energy Manager, Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital)