Sky’s 2019 Bigger Picture Impact Report

• All Sky Originals now CarbonNeutral® in the UK
• 15,000 hours of community volunteering by Sky employees in 2019

Sky has published its annual social and environmental impact report highlighting the progress it has made in 2019 and setting out its Bigger Picture ambitions for 2020 and beyond.

The publication of the report comes as Sky announces a landmark commitment toward its ambition to be net zero carbon by 2030, with all its Sky Originals from 2019 on, now certified CarbonNeutral® in the UK

Sky is the first broadcaster in the albert Consortium to make this commitment, marking its determination to be the most sustainable media and entertainment company in Europe.

Earlier this year, Sky announced its plan to be net zero carbon across its entire value chain by 2030, and launched Sky Zero, a campaign encouraging others to #GoZero by spreading the word to its millions of customers every day.

Jeremy Darroch, Sky Group Chief Executive, said: “We are entering a critical decade on the long road to climate recovery, and all businesses have the opportunity to accelerate progress and become part of the solution.

“In February 2020, we confirmed our most ambitious commitment yet on climate action by setting a 2030 target for Sky Zero. And already in 2019, we became the first broadcaster to offset the emissions to of all our UK-commissioned Sky Originals – an important milestone on our path to net zero carbon, in addition to already being carbon neutral for our operations since 2006.”

In 2019 Sky launched volunteering programme, Sky Cares, with every one of their 33,000 employees across Europe, able to give back to the community on company time.

Last year over 15,000 hours were volunteered across four good causes: helping the homeless, alleviating loneliness, supporting young people and caring for the environment. The work can involve anything from spending time with older people, to mentoring school children or taking part in a beach clean.

Sky now has the aim of having 250,000 employee volunteered hours across Europe by 2025.

Read the full report

Better Lives

• Sky Arts brings some of the world’s best theatre, art and music to our audiences and last year had over 1,700 hours of Arts-programming available.
• According to Ofcom research, 80% of people agree that Sky News helps them understand the world better is at the heart of the story providing accurate independent news available free-to-air across Europe.
• The development of Sky Studios Elstree will lead to the creation of 2,000 new creative jobs when it opens in 2022. It will attract £3 billion in production spend over its first five years, boosting the creative industries in the UK and beyond.

Better World

• Sky is on the journey to be net zero carbon by 2030 and last year reduced its carbon emissions by a further 7%, cutting 5,000 tonnes of CO2e from its operations, achieving a 4% increase in renewable energy generated on its own sites and a 15% reduction in total waste.
• Since its launch in 2017, the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign has reached 47 million people across Europe and all Sky products and front-of-house operations are now single use plastic free*, saving more than 300 tonnes across the business to date.
• Since its launch in 2018 Sky Ocean Ventures has invested £10million in 21 start-ups committed to finding solutions that enable millions of people to use less plastic and recycle more.

Better Communities

• Sky employees have volunteered over 15,000 hours for the 60 charity partners of Sky Cares.
• The MAMA Youth Project addresses the lack of diversity in the creative industries, and each year Sky financially supports 24 trainees with a programme to help them get their first break.
• In the UK and Italy over 163,000 children have now experienced the Sky Academy Studios since the studios first opened in 2012 and have got their first taster of what a career in the media industry might look like.

Note to Editors

For more information, please contact: Sian.Parry@sky.uk

*Note: In 2020 a small amount of single use plastic is being used for health & safety requirements required due to Covid-19. However, we continue to work hard to avoid all unnecessary single-use plastic and keep it out of landfill.

About Sky

With 24 million customers across seven countries, Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Our 32,000 employees help connect our customers to the very best entertainment, sports, news, arts and to our own local, original content.

Following the success of Sky originals like Chernobyl, we plan to double our investment in original content by 2024. We’re also developing a new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which is expected to lead to the creation of over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in UK creative sector in the first five years alone.

Our technology allows customers to watch what they want, when they want, how they want, and as we connect millions of families to content they love, we believe it is our responsibility to do it safely. That’s why we offer services like Sky Broadband Buddy and the Sky Kids app. And our online streaming service, NOW TV, brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service.

We also believe that a company of our scale has a responsibility that goes beyond our business, and into the community. We recently announced a series of commitments to help tackle racial injustice and improve diversity and inclusion. To ensure the commitments are delivered, Sky will invest £10million per year across its markets for each of the next three years. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 – two decades before we have to – and we’re an inclusive employer recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity.

About BAFTA albert

albert is a collaborative BAFTA, indie and broadcaster backed project that brings the screen industries together to tackle their environmental impact and inspire sustainable living. Founded in 2011 and governed by an industry consortium, the group’s objective is to support everyone working in film and TV to create positive environmental change. They do this by enabling every part of the screen industry to eliminate waste and carbon emissions from production and empowering the industry to create on-screen content strategies that support a vision for a sustainable future

The project offers events, training, certification, a bespoke production carbon calculator and a renewable energy procurement project. Each year over 1000 productions use the albert calculator with a further 300 also applying for albert certification.