The MTN Ghana says it is taking steps to transition to eco-friendly and sustainable energy systems to reduce its carbon footprint and achieve net zero by 2040.

Madam Adwoa Afriyie Wiafe, Chief Corporate Service and Sustainability Officer at MTN, said the company gave priority to the sustainability of the environment in which it operated, thus, working towards reducing its carbon emissions as part of its climate actions.

She said this, in Takoradi, during a media and stakeholder forum, organised for Editors in the Western Region by MTN Ghana.

The forum was to brief participants on the corporate services of the Company, successes and challenges as well as seek feedback on how to better improve their services and products.

Madam Wiafe stated that MTN’s sustainability framework was anchored on four pillars namely: “Doing for planet”, “Doing for society”, governance, and socio-economic development.

“So when it comes to the reduction of our carbon footprint, we are looking at our data centres. We are converting our energy sources to solar, and in cases where we are not able to immediately transition to solar, we are replacing them with more energy efficient equipment,” she said.

She continued: “In our offices as well, we are converting to energy-efficient appliances to reduce our carbon footprint. Our ambition at MTN is to achieve net zero by 2040 and that is what we are working towards.”

On the social side of the Company’s sustainability strategies, Madam Wiafe noted that MTN Ghana aimed to have 50 per cent of its workforce being women as means of promoting diversity and inclusion.

On some of their achievements over the years, she said the firm through the MTN Ghana Foundation had invested some GHC106.5 million into 166 social projects that had impacted about 4.5 million lives directly and indirectly.

The projects are 90 education, 55 health, 15 economic empowerment interventions, and six community support initiatives, she said.

She said customer experience was important to MTN, and gave the assurance that they would continue to invest in the best technological infrastructure to enhance services to customers.

Mr Teddy Hayford-Acquah, South West Technical Manager of MTN Ghana, noted that one of the company’s major challenge was fibre cut which intermittently disrupted services connectivity.

He mentioned that the issue was mainly due to activities of road contractors, private developers, and small-scale miners among others which cost the company millions of cedis to fix.

He said: “Within this year, we have repaired about 40 kilometres of fibre due to cuts from road construction and other activities in the Western Region. When fibre is taken out, you can see the pressure that comes into the system.”

Mr Hayford-Acquah, therefore, appealed to journalists to advocate against destroying fibre cables, saying, the country’s digitalisation agenda could only thrive when fibre optic cables were protected from damages.