Interview: Virgin Media O2’s Dana Haidan on growing a green strategy

Slashing e-waste can be huge for emissions reduction

Research suggests 52% to 82% of the total carbon footprint of IT hardware, including smartphones, comes from mineral mining, manufacturing and transport through the supply chain. From 2014-2020, Scope 3 emissions from embodied carbon in e-waste increased 53% to 580mt³ of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) emissions, and that is expected to reach 852mt³ in 2030.

Other studies now show that coloured microparticles and nanoparticles swept into the atmosphere absorb and trap heat and contribute to global warming. The same research suggests total carbon emissions could be halved through better design as well as reduction of OEM resource use and circularity (“repair, refurbish, recycle”).

“We’ve been looking at our internal e-waste to manage that, and externally at the wider industry issues of people being open to buying refurbed and recycling. Removing stigma and myths around all of that – including communicating very clearly what happens to their data,” Haidan says. “We want it to become a very viable option and the norm for people to buy second-hand and to recycle their devices.”

VMO2 has committed to removing single-use plastic from all its own-branded customer packaging, as well as doubling the number of consumers buying “high-quality and affordable” second-hand or refurbished devices and the proportion of devices recycled.

VMO2 also founded a kind of food bank for data, with 5,000 data hubs nationally. It’s working with city councils to launch 30 local device recycling banks in 30 cities by 2030, following a successful pilot in Coventry.

Since 2009, the O2 Recycle service has recycled four million devices, paying £356m to consumers, with zero parts going to landfill. VMO2 has repaired, reused and recycled an estimated total 7.5 million bits of customer kit.

“We have scaled up our circularity work, resulting in over 10 million customers buying refurb, recycling their devices and donating their tech,” she says.

More can be achieved by transforming regulation to support circularity, she says. European directives and concepts such as digital passporting for traceability have “helped things along”, but more must be done, including in the UK.

“For example, right now there is no universal grading standard for devices. One reseller will tell you, this is a Grade A, another that it’s Grade B,” she says.

Ultimately, unless they’re more specifically interested in circularity and recycling, customers typically seek a relatively friction-less experience. They want it to be easy to find what they want. That restricts sales of refurbished kit today.

Insurance strategies could provide part of the answer, and VMO2 has been considering how to devise an effective proposition that would give second-hand device purchases more assurance of performance and reliability, she says.

People need peace of mind that goes beyond whether a device can be resold and used again safely. They want to know whether a refurb will perform like new, or close enough, in terms of battery life, camera and screen, for instance.

Giving customers connectivity, control and choices

VMO2 also targets digital inclusion, without which people can’t necessarily invest in the products or solutions they most favour. “Greener” offerings have often come at a higher price point that excludes people who would go green if they could afford it. Others have been hamstrung by poor customer experiences that put people off.

“So, we’ve started to introduce ‘intersectional’ ways of addressing these issues,” Haidan says. “Because there is a segment in society that cannot afford connectivity, we believe we have a role to play in supporting [connectivity]. A lot also don’t have access to devices: domestic violence victims, refugees, asylum seekers.”

That means considering how data and device access can be increased through programmes and incentives, such as discounts or free offers for certain population segments or who meet certain criteria. VMO2’s five-year Community Calling programme re-homed 2025 devices in 2025, many coming from VMO2’s own supply chain.

Digital wellbeing might include almost anything that gives customers control and choice over how they interact with tech – right up to supporting anti-scam artificial intelligence (AI) tools for customer security.

“Ultimately, if we’re not doing our part on these issues, we’ve done something fundamentally wrong as a business”

Dana Haidan, Virgin Media O2

So for VMO2, sustainable, responsible business entails a broader approach, that looks at more value-adding approaches. Key to this is a “double materiality” approach as per the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) framework. This directive is to consider the effects of the world on the business as well as the converse, tied to stringent sustainability reporting.

While grateful that UK companies don’t have to comply with all the related minutiae, the double-materiality process is “really useful”, says Haidan, in that it helps centre customer trust and expectations of VMO2 as a brand as well as keeping demand requirements and future developments in scope. She’s especially proud of signing two 10-year UK renewable power purchase agreements.

Perhaps surprisingly, VMO2 doesn’t directly market its products as green. Rather, being environmentally sound should be the norm, says Haidan. Benefits must flow from a carefully designed proposition that incorporates greenness essentially as a byproduct, Haidan confirms. Of course, people don’t like to be preached at, either.

“Let’s face it: most focus first on ‘what’s in it for me’. So, we focus heavily on the fact that when you hand your device in, we pay you for it. But our impact on the environment is a priority, and how we ensure we decarbonise, take care of our carbon footprint and invest in renewable energies, sending a strong market signal.”

VMO2 embeds and infuses sustainability and business responsibility throughout the operation, with carbon dashboarding and targets now embedded in strategy and key performance indicators (KPIs) at key intervention points through the next five years – a key change from the earlier Better Connections plan. Consideration of nature impacts is also expanding, says Haidan.

VMO2’s investment committee examines all capital expenditure (capex) and investments through the lens of “responsible business” KPIs. All suppliers too must meet its “responsible business” criteria, and even employee bonuses are looked at.

“Ultimately, if we’re not doing our part on these issues, we’ve done something fundamentally wrong as a business. They’re not side initiatives,” Haidan says. “None of the targets or ambitions we’ve got in our strategy are negotiable. It’s been quite a shift, because you wouldn’t previously see sustainability strategies looking at the way the business is run, instead of just when you’re doing your ESG disclosures.”

Tough trade-offs drive commensurate rewards

Haidan says that three aspects she loves about her job are it’s growing systemic importance, the depth of impact she’s been able to achieve, and the chance to see the best in people.

Haidan’s sustainability-focused career spans 17 years so far. In 2022, she joined VMO2 after senior sustainability roles at Visa, Vodafone, consultancy Sustainable Square, and QatarGas (now QatarEnergy) on the back of a Carnegie Mellon (CMU) bachelor’s in business administration and post-grad sustainability studies at Oxford and Cambridge.

She grew up between the US and Qatar. “My father worked as an engineer in the fossil fuels industry. Towards the end of his career, he became more aware of the wider impact: it was the Al Gore ‘Inconvenient Truth’ era! That became all he read about and slowly became my obsession too,” Haidan says.

Gore, 1993-2001 US vice-president, won global acclaim for his campaign to educate people about global warming. Beginning in 1989, his crusade peaked with 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth – still ranked 20 years later as the 18th biggest-earning documentary since records began.

Haidan knew “very early on” what she wanted to do, although her parents didn’t think much of her career prospects. “Even doubting I’d find a job!” she jokes. “I thought of myself as an activist with a corporate lanyard for the longest time. Not practical. I’ve learned – the hard way – that it can be polarising. Yet people really do want to do the right thing.”

As other CSOs have found, the key is more often about making tough trade-offs and speaking the right language with the right stakeholders. Often, you’ll get better results by focusing on topics such as business resilience, rather than net zero as such.

“We talk about it through the lens of margin protections, giving choice and so changing the language of how you engage,” Haidan says.

Although activism “definitely works” in places, she’s “not so sure” about the corporation. What you do is make a difference, doing great work, while delivering growth and business benefits. The two goals don’t need to compete.

“You can decouple negative environmental impacts from growth. And we’ve done it, and we’re doing it, with conviction at the highest levels of organisation that this is what we need to remain relevant for the long term.”