Interview: Orange Enterprise’s Jérôme Goulard on making telecoms greener and cleaner
In below a decade, chief sustainability officers (CSOs) have change into key to synthesising cross-domain data and technical mechanisms that drive organisational environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks – and Orange Enterprise’s Jérôme Goulard has been there all through.
Becoming a member of Orange’s B2B division gross sales crew in 1995, Goulard’s roles included head of banking and insurance coverage giant accounts, head of the IT providers enterprise unit and vice-president of B2B buyer expertise. Finally, he grew to become CSO “a bit greater than” 5 years in the past, including: “I was on gross sales, proposing providers. Now I see the impacts of what we suggest from one other angle.”
Goulard presently heads up the Orange Enterprise strategy to sustainable IT, liaising with groups throughout gross sales, operations, human sources (HR) and sourcing. The position appealed for its potential to offer him a brand new perspective on the enterprise, he says.
Goulard’s international view of all job traces means he has been in a position to lead adjustments in {hardware} lifecycle administration, decreasing carbon impacts by scaling up use of refurbished community package from routers to switches and Wi-Fi terminals. In 2023 alone, 50,000 out of 130,000 models deployed have been refurbished, saving the corporate €15m (£13m) in capital expenditure.
The questions that maintain Goulard up at evening lately are much less about how you can drive gross sales that contribute to the underside line and extra about how he can assist the corporate design its affords to prospects another way.
Publish-Paris 2024, Goulard has been overseeing the redeployment of IT gear used at Olympics occasions. Up to now, round 90% of the Wi-Fi terminals and 78% of community switches have been moved to La Poste places throughout France, stopping 1000’s of gadgets from turning into e-waste in addition to supporting the nationwide publish service’s community modernisation efforts.
“The preliminary dedication was to cut back by 50% the impression per buyer. At the moment, and we’re nonetheless in that pattern, we all know that digital providers are rising – the present pattern being generative AI [GenAI],” Goulard says. “Due to this fact we wished to measure it per buyer. Round 2010, we started to launch our Inexperienced IT&Networks [ITN] programme about all of the infrastructure, gear and networks we use.”
In 2024, the Inexperienced ITN programme saved 1,358 GWh of electrical energy and 127 million litres of gasoline oil.
Technique builds on outcomes
Technique has developed prior to now 5 years or so with Goulard on the helm. Sustainability is now a “main pillar” of Orange Enterprise’s strategic Lead the Future plan, together with up to date milestone commitments for 2025, 2030 and 2040 reductions in Scopes 1, 2 and three emissions. Newest figures recommend their targets are inside attain, he says, placing Orange Enterprise firmly on observe for 2030’s aim of Scopes 1, 2 and three of -45% versus 2020, with internet zero a “last milestone” in 2040.
“We are going to cut back Scopes 1 and a pair of by 30% in 2025 when in comparison with 2015, and Scope 3 by 14% in comparison with 2018,” Goulard says, noting that 5 years in the past the important thing ESG matters comprised simply 20 PowerPoint slides.
Orange has additionally pledged to extend European recycling of cell gadgets in Europe to over 30% by finish 2025.
Goulard agrees that AI is without doubt one of the main sustainability challenges. He has been supporting Orange accomplice Mistral AI in its quest for transparency to ship the info wanted to handle impacts, then making use of related pondering to Orange Enterprise’ Dwell Intelligence product. The thought is that prospects can see the carbon impacts of their utilization. The precept is to encourage the selection of lower-impact approaches wherever doable.
In Goulard’s case, he focuses most on environmental elements, with the HR crew taking up extra of the “social” in its ESG targets. And that has been “fairly thrilling”, he says, including: “Sustainability was extra of a cherry on the cake, slightly than embedded in our actions, processes and merchandise. I actually needed to create an entire ecosystem, internally and externally.”
“Sustainability was extra of a cherry on the cake … I needed to create an entire ecosystem, internally and externally”
Jérôme Goulard, Orange Enterprise
In fact, sustainability isn’t nearly advertising and marketing, gross sales and sourcing. Nevertheless, more and more, sustainability entails shut work with monetary groups, prospects, suppliers and all the assorted job traces. Managing monetary and extra-financial matters collectively will be key to a number of enterprise goals. Deloitte has described the CSO position as being a “chief sense-maker” – making sense and connections out of myriad sources of fact and necessities.
“Certainly, that’s what I do at this time,” Goulard says. “Previously, I had individuals saying they like sustainability as a result of they like nature, bushes and so forth. Fairly, what we truly need to do is mobilise the impression of our providers.”
For Goulard, that features working with suppliers to get information, then organising and structuring that to outline trajectories and their levers. He concentrates on figuring out providers that have an effect on sustainability and how you can cut back their environmental impression.
That has meant creating a number of instruments for interacting with the whole lot of data in Orange Enterprise databases and understanding how you can share key information in a structured approach. Transparency, one of many main obstacles to effectivity and financial savings throughout provide chains, is being realised now after years of labor.
“And we see it extra within the requests from our prospects. They offer us some Excel recordsdata, info that they wish to acquire on what we do, and we do the identical with our suppliers,” he says. “So, we’re starting to optimise a little bit of this info, in order that we are able to mobilise the entire exercise.”
Understanding information is important
Moreover, Goulard believes that all the pieces carried out in sustainability must be public info, from methodologies to information. Knowledge codecs have to be outlined so they allow provider and buyer interactions which might be mutually helpful as a result of sustainability is in the end about ecosystems, he factors out.
“Now we have additionally begun to create a consulting apply round information and managing ESG. We simply had our first launch buyer that’s working with us on that matter,” he says. “We’re working with their factories to get all the data and to organise it in software program.”
Goulard can be concerned within the Orange companions to net-zero programme, which is about formalising progress plans with suppliers, and is the primary such Orange group programme to incorporate giant suppliers. For instance, there’s a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for decarbonisation of frequent providers to its prospects with Cisco, which is about figuring out “key levers” the place the businesses can work collectively.
“Once more, it’s about information, and Cisco shall be our first accomplice to have an utility programming interface [API] related on to the software program that we’re implementing to handle carbon trajectories and modernisation of our providers,” says Goulard.
“Earlier than, I tended to see sustainability fragmented into carbon, vitality, water, biodiversity and waste. However working as CSO, I now see sustainability as systemic, deeply tied to points like digital inclusion, accountable innovation, ethics in AI, and social and societal impacts.”
As well as, Goulard works with the Orange innovation and R&D crew on eco-design. Once more, that’s about measuring what you do and understanding how you can cut back it, modernising buyer and accomplice proposals. One consequence has been enhancements to nickel designs for personal cell community options.
“Now we have launched a apply and I’ve my crew engaged on eco-design of our providers. How will we measure the impression, establish the important thing parts, and what we may do within the infrastructure, gear and providers to cut back the carbon impression?” Goulard says.
Most international locations perceive that sustainability could also be key if they’re to stay aggressive within the mid-term, even when in a roundabout way. Many firms in Asia in addition to Europe are working to cut back their impression or creating adaptation plans. Right now, many settle for that local weather change is going on as proven by impacts on actions, infrastructures, floods, excessive warmth and so forth, Goulard factors out.
He strongly believes that sustainability ought to cross all groups, actions and providers, and says he’s most happy with his “transversal crew, the Inexperienced Act Leaders” representing all entities and job roles of Orange Enterprise.
Drawing many threads collectively
The cross-division, broad-perspective strategy has been essential in driving efficiencies and new operational fashions in addition to financial savings – as an example, in the case of sourcing. It provides as much as actual outcomes, together with an enriched relationship with prospects, suppliers and companions, in addition to worker engagement, Goulard says.
He’s proud that Orange was rated 84 out of 100 by EcoVadis, a France-based sustainable-procurement platform and rankings supplier, in 2025, together with 100 out of 100 for environmental elements, including: “Globally, we see that there are ’some geopolitics’ in ‘communication’ that recommend there’s a backlash [against net zero]. However there are nonetheless plenty of firms engaged on sustainability, and I see that within the requests from our prospects. We nonetheless see plenty of info requested on that matter.”
Unsurprisingly, a CSO gaining access to the Orange board of administrators will be essential. Goulard confirms that sustainability is now a board-level matter at Orange, not a facet dialog because it has generally been seen in years previous. He works straight with the board to make sure sustainability targets align with enterprise technique, providers portfolio, operations and danger administration.
“Having that seat on the desk means we are able to embed sustainability into the corporate’s long-term imaginative and prescient for net-zero and supporting shoppers on their very own ESG journeys,” says Goulard. “That is additionally about making ready for the long run – as an example, by our local weather danger adaptation plan, uncommon sources planning in our sourcing and growth of progressive options.”
It stays a tough activity to develop sustainability initiatives that may contact on all the pieces from safety to worker relations. Give attention to short-term advantages and short-term actions can come naturally to many organisations as a matter of survival. It may well additionally change into ordinary, however that’s why the problem satisfies.
Additional, what Goulard sees in France and round Europe is that there’s curiosity in additional long-term pondering. Particularly, most firms proceed to keep up their commitments, actions and requests for info on how you can work collectively on decreasing environmental impacts, together with on the worldwide degree, he says.
