Moving towards the circular economy

Every year, Earth Overshoot Day comes a little earlier: in 2018, it was August 1st... 5 months before the end of the year! Humans are living beyond their means, we now need 1.7 planets to meet our needs.

Earth’s resources are under pressure: the linear “extract > produce > consume > discard” model is doomed in the long-run.

At COP21, Orange made a commitment to include the circular economy its organisation and processes. This extensive project affects our whole business and involves all the players in our industrial and commercial ecosystem.

In our contracts, we ask our suppliers to reduce their use of raw materials and to develop less energy-intensive equipment with longer lifespans.

We are working on the modularity of network equipment to reduce the material impact of technological developments and we are developing the re-use of second-hand equipment.

We are developing the eco-design of the materials in our products (optimised use of plastic in our boxes, reduction of packaging), and the eco-design of our services to make them more efficient. And, of course, we are actively continuing to collect and recycle equipment and devices within WEEE channels.

Thanks to an intensive “green IT & Networks” policy applied to all our operations and infrastructure, we are significantly reducing our carbon footprint, with ambitious targets related to the use and production of renewable energy.

Within the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's CE100 programme we are working on improving our practices in collaboration with other members of the digital sector.

Reducing our environmental impact at a time when digital uses are constantly increasing requires substantive and long-term work that we are pursuing and will continue to actively pursue. Orange doesn’t have a planet B either.

Key figures