Using fewer materials and reducing waste

At Openreach, we have an ambition to become a more circular business, extending the life of the materials we use and using less and wasting less wherever possible. One of our greatest opportunities is the recovery of copper from redundant and legacy networks.

As we build Full Fibre to the nation, we are beginning to extract unused copper for recycling, avoiding the need for mining and keeping this precious commodity in circulation.

Abby Chicken, Head of Sustainability:

Copper is one of the most important metals in the world, with really high demand, because it is used as a component part in loads of industry and manufacture. So from construction to your mobile phone and other devices. And global demand is going up. And with increasingly challenging supply chains, some analysts are predicting a shortage.

So the responsible thing for us, sitting on a network that is increasingly becoming redundant, it makes business sense for us to recycle it. Not least as well Full Fibre is the future for us, we are also dependent on copper in certain areas, some for repair of some of that old network.

But also, we are converting our fleet to electric vans. We are powered by renewables, so it helps us to meet our own ambitions, including in circular economy.

Jo Koroma, Director, National Infrastructure:

We are moving from our copper network through to building out a fantastic new fibre network, and we know that we're gradually moving customers from our copper network to our fibre network.

It's important that we we utilise some of that metal, you know, and some of those resources to both fund the work that we're doing for our fibre, but also to make sure that we're playing our part in kind of keeping that circular economy alive.

Over the coming years, as more and more people move to Full Fibre, we will ensure that even more copper is being recycled as part of our mission to build as sustainably as possible.