Orange at Change Now to raise awareness of the importance of recycling mobile phones

Orange is a partner of Change Now. The event will be held in Paris at the Grand Palais from 30 January to 1 February. Change Now is an international summit dedicated to accelerating and supporting the ecosystem of solutions developed in response to our era’s environmental and societal challenges.

Orange at Change Now

Orange has made its commitment to the environment a central piece of its strategy with its new strategic plan, Engage 2025. Change Now is an ideal opportunity for the Group to showcase the interactions between major corporations and start-ups that are key to achieving their common goal of taking on climate change.

It also offers an opportunity to raise visitors’ awareness of Orange’s efforts to control and decrease its energy and environmental footprint and suggest simple ways they can reduce the environmental impact of their digital practices, such as:

• making it easier to recycle old devices, particularly mobile phones (the Group has collected 15 million mobile phones to date)
• the manufacturing and end-of-life phases account for three-quarters of a mobile phone’s environmental impact
• raising awareness of the amount of energy consumed by devices that are plugged in or charging
• introducing the new Livebox: the carbon footprint of the Livebox 5 has been reduced by 29% (compared to the Livebox 4)
• visiting a DataCenter via virtual reality
• discovering and exploring the Fairphone, the world’s fairest and most sustainable phone.

Orange will be presenting 20 start-ups that offer digital sustainable development solutions at Change Now.

Ramon Fernandez, Deputy CEO of Orange, will participate in the “Business with values” session on 30 January from 12:30 to 1:45 pm. [

Orange and its carbon footprint

Orange has set an ambitious goal for environmental exemplarity, in line with the IPCC recommendations: achieving net zero carbon by 2040, ten years ahead of the industry target date, despite the explosion in data volumes on its networks. To make that happen, the Group’s Engage 2025 strategic plan includes a series of commitments:

• increased use of renewable energy sources, which will account for over 50% of the Group’s energy mix by 2025 (up from 18% today), with particularly ambitious goals in Africa
• an unprecedented drive for energy efficiency with the Green ITN 2 programme: an action plan based on optimisation of 5G deployments, eco-efficient datacenters, and reduced energy consumption by devices like set-top boxes. [

Orange and recycling

By 2025, the circular economy will be a key element of the Group's environmental commitment, which includes the following targets:

• 20% reconditioned equipment in our network infrastructure and datacenters
• 100% of Orange-branded products integrated into an eco-design programme
• collecting 30% of the mobile phones sold in each European country, and the equivalent of 20% in WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) in MEA.
• 10% of European sales volumes generated on reconditioned mobile phones
• offering attractive mobile repair services in all European countries

Orange participates in a mobile collection and recycling programme that operates in France and in Africa, in cooperation with Emmaüs International. Orange collects, sorts, and recycles or reconditions old phones which can then be sold on the second-hand market. All profits generated by the sales of mobile phones collected in France are donated to the Emmaüs International network.

Orange’s presence at the Change Now Summit also fits into its societal contribution campaign, particularly the environmental dimension of that campaign. With this new campaign, Orange aims to raise awareness of the benefits of recycling.

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