Telia’s sustainability efforts won it an accolade for the third year in a row, with a specialist ratings company ranking the operator in the top 1 per cent of 130,000 companies covered in figures for 2024.

Sustainability ratings company EcoVadis awarded Telia a platinum medal for its environmental efforts. The operator stated it scored 87 out of 100 in the most-recent evaluation, compared with 83 in 2023.

Telia explained EcoVadis assesses 21 criteria spanning environment, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement.

It credited the higher score in 2024 on its performance in the environment and ethics categories, with the use of fossil-free renewable energy sources to power its networks a key contributor.

Telia also scored highly for efforts to prolong the life of users’ mobile devices, an area which is increasingly dominating headlines due to growing electronic waste.

The operator noted ethical work including corruption risk assessments, promotion of information security and whistleblower mechanisms as strengths in this category.

Telia aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040 and offer digital inclusion programmes with the potential to bring 2.2 million more people online by 2026, group head of sustainability Anna Augustson said.

“Our position at the centre of digitalisation gives us a fantastic platform to create positive impacts”, she said, adding the EcoVadis ranking is a spur to “do even more”.

Telia pledged to offer more details of its sustainability efforts when it releases its annual report for 2024 in March.