{"id":15275,"date":"2025-02-20T13:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T13:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/?post_type=gsma_theme_study&#038;p=15275"},"modified":"2025-03-25T16:01:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T16:01:46","slug":"virgin-media-o2-circular-economy-as-a-key-pillar-of-its-better-connections-plan","status":"publish","type":"gsma_theme_study","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/virgin-media-o2-circular-economy-as-a-key-pillar-of-its-better-connections-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Media O2 \u2013 Circular economy as a key pillar of its Better Connections Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Better Connections plan is Virgin Media O2\u2019s ESG strategy which covers four key pillars including the circular economy.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Virgin Media O2 committed to supporting consumers to carry out 10 million circular actions by the end of 2025, to help tackle e-waste. This includes sending back old kit, sustainably recycling devices, donating smartphones to people and growing demand for refurbished devices.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company also committed to achieve zero waste products and services within its own business operations, with these goals: 1) Achieve zero waste operations and products by 2025; 2) Recycle 95% of operational waste with less than 5% going to incineration; and 3) Reuse or recycle 100% of all returned customer and network equipment. The company\u2019s latest progress is included in its <a href=\"https:\/\/news.virginmediao2.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Sustainability-Performance-Update-2023-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sustainability Performance Update 2023<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Virgin Media O2 plays an important role in promoting circular actions to its customers. This public commitment to targets is useful to gain support from internal teams to promote solutions. Finally, having a specific circular economy workstream and targets allowed the company to appoint a Circular Economy Manager to Virgin Media O2\u2019s sustainability team which works to embed circularity into our business and our propositions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/news.virginmediao2.co.uk\/responsible-business\/creating-a-circular-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Learn more<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Better Connections plan is Virgin Media O2\u2019s ESG strategy which covers four key pillars including the circular economy.&nbsp;&nbsp; Virgin Media O2 committed to supporting consumers to carry out 10 million circular actions by the end of 2025, to help tackle e-waste. This includes sending back old kit, sustainably recycling devices, donating smartphones to people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":15345,"template":"","meta":{"image":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/VirginMediaO2_2_440x190.jpg","json":{"gsma_study_logo":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/VirginMediaO2_200x200.png","gsma_study_category":"3533","gsma_study_member":"0","gsma_study_website":"","gsma_study_email":"","gsma_study_twitter":"","gsma_study_facebook":"","gsma_study_linkedin":"","gsma_study_country":"","gsma_study_bg":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/VirginMediaO2_2_440x190.jpg","gsma_study_video":"","gsma_study_sdg":"","gsma_study_hfi":null,"gsma_study_orgs":""},"cats":{"circularity-topic":[{"term_id":3545,"name":"E-waste and recycling","slug":"circularity-topic-e-waste-and-recycling","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3545,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3542,"count":15,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3548,"name":"Repair and refurbishment","slug":"circularity-topic-repair-and-refurbishment","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3548,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3542,"count":13,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3549,"name":"Takeback and trade-in","slug":"circularity-topic-takeback-and-trade-in","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3549,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3542,"count":18,"filter":"raw"}],"circularity-region":[{"term_id":3552,"name":"Europe","slug":"circularity-region-europe","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3552,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3550,"count":33,"filter":"raw"}],"circularity":[{"term_id":3550,"name":"Region","slug":"circularity-region","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3550,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3533,"count":43,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3542,"name":"Topic","slug":"circularity-topic","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3542,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3533,"count":40,"filter":"raw"}]},"orgs":[]},"tags":[],"casestudy_categories":[3533,3469,3545,3552,3550,3548,3549,3542],"algolia_discover_type":[3511],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.3 (Yoast SEO v23.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Virgin Media O2 \u2013 Circular economy as a key pillar of its Better Connections Plan - External Affairs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/virgin-media-o2-circular-economy-as-a-key-pillar-of-its-better-connections-plan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Virgin Media O2 \u2013 Circular economy as a key pillar of its Better Connections Plan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Better Connections plan is Virgin Media O2\u2019s ESG strategy which covers four key pillars including the circular economy.&nbsp;&nbsp; Virgin Media O2 committed to supporting consumers to carry out 10 million circular actions by the end of 2025, to help tackle e-waste. This includes sending back old kit, sustainably recycling devices, donating smartphones to people [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/virgin-media-o2-circular-economy-as-a-key-pillar-of-its-better-connections-plan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"External Affairs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gsma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-25T16:01:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/VirginMediaO2_2_440x190.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"190\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@GSMA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Virgin Media O2 \u2013 Circular economy as a key pillar of its Better Connections Plan - External Affairs","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/virgin-media-o2-circular-economy-as-a-key-pillar-of-its-better-connections-plan\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Virgin Media O2 \u2013 Circular economy as a key pillar of its Better Connections Plan","og_description":"The Better Connections plan is Virgin Media O2\u2019s ESG strategy which covers four key pillars including the circular economy.&nbsp;&nbsp; Virgin Media O2 committed to supporting consumers to carry out 10 million circular actions by the end of 2025, to help tackle e-waste. 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