The Bigger Picture

We’ve always been about the small screen, but we also see the bigger picture.
We know how important it is to be a responsible business if we want to achieve sustainable success over the long term.

We always strive to do the right thing in our day-to-day business. We try to always behave fairly towards our customers, to support our employees’ development and to forge positive partnerships with suppliers. Over and above this, we focus on three areas that matter to our customers and where we believe Sky can make a real and positive contribution. We help to create a healthy environment by playing our part to tackle climate change and inspiring customers to do the same. We increase participation in sport through our partnerships with leading sports bodies. And we bring more of the arts to more people on-screen, on stage and even in the streets.    

Doing the right thing
Our approach to responsibility includes doing the right thing for customers, for example by providing them with the information and tools they need to get the most out of Sky - whether it’s protecting their privacy online, controlling what their kids can watch on TV, or getting the right help when they contact us.  We never forget we have a responsibility to our viewers – from the way we handle challenging issues on-screen to our commitment to objectivity and impartiality in our news coverage.  Our accessibility tools open up Sky products to more people across the UK and Ireland.   

Our people are the bedrock of our success, so we want to make sure we do the right thing for them by helping them perform to the best of their ability, and make sure they can be proud to work for Sky. To make sure we are giving our customers the best, we need to employ the best people, whatever their background. We invest in employee training and development to provide them with the skills and knowledge our business needs to succeed; and we recognise and reward their achievements and hard work.  

And our responsibilities don’t stop with our own business. We’re working hard to make sure our suppliers share our commitment to responsible business and live up to our values too.

Creating a healthy environment 
We’ve been playing our part to tackle climate change for several years now. In the last four years alone, at a time when our business has grown considerably, we’ve reduced our carbon emissions by 16% across the Group. Now we’re building Europe’s most sustainable broadcasting facility and working with production companies to reduce the environmental impact of our programming.  

In 2009, we completed the roll-out of the world’s first auto-standby feature for set-top boxes to every single active Sky box. We estimate this will save around £20 million on customers’ energy bills and 90,000 tonnes
of CO2 each year – that’s almost twice Sky’s entire carbon footprint. In April 2009, we were awarded the Carbon Trust standard for companies taking real action to reduce their impact
on climate change.  

We can go even further by inspiring and helping our customers to make changes too, through our on-screen content, online resources and customer magazine. In April 2009, we celebrated Earth Day with environmental programming across nine channels, a 24-hour red button service for customers to donate to our environment partner, giving away over 30,000 Sky energy monitors, and helping our staff make their homes more energy efficient.  

And, with our charity partner, Global Action Plan, we work to create ways to help the wider community to join in. Over 1,300 primary schools have got involved in our Appetite for Action initiative, which aims to inform and inspire over one million pupils to reduce food waste.  

Increasing participation in sport
As well as increasing the quantity, quality and depth of coverage on TV, Sky’s investment in sport helps to provide funding from the elite to the grass roots, delivering much-needed improvements in facilities. We go even further and work with sports bodies to encourage even more people to get active.  

For the past six years, we’ve worked closely with the Youth Sport Trust to develop the Sky Sports Living for Sport programme. So far, the initiative has used the power of sport to inspire and motivate 17,000 young people. This year, we opened up the programme to all secondary schools across the UK so even more young people can benefit.  

In cricket, the ECB’s Coach Education Programme has trained 13,000 cricket coaches with Sky’s support, more than double the original target. In fact, there are now over 60 grassroots coaches for every professional cricketer in England and Wales. In October 2008, we extended our commitment to this programme for a further two years.  

We’re supporting cycling in Britain through a five-year, multi-million pound partnership with British Cycling.  At the elite level, we’re supporting all forms of the competitive sport, from track and road racing to BMX and mountain-biking.  We want to inspire the nation by creating a new pro-cycling team with the aim of winning the Tour de France within five years. And through our new ‘Skyride’ programme, we’ve also set ourselves the goal of getting one million more people cycling regularly for fun and fitness. Visit www.sky.com/skyride to find out more.  

Whether it’s on the screen or at the grassroots, we’re proud to support British sport at all levels.  

Bringing the arts to more people
Our third area of focus is opening up the arts to more people.
We do this first through our Sky Arts channels, which now offer 36 hours of arts programming day. But it’s not just about what
we put on the small screen.  

We’ve been one of Britain’s largest corporate supporters of the arts for some time, through our sponsorships of the Hay Festival, English National Ballet and English National Opera, a partnership which has seen us invest more than £5 million over six years.  

To broaden that support even further, we are extending our ‘Sky Arts At…’ initiative to reach even more arts organisations across the UK. Working with organisations as diverse as the Mostly Mozart Festival, Dance Umbrella and the Royal National Theatre, we create behind-the-scenes documentaries to bring their work to millions of people online and on TV.  

Our new partnership with Artichoke, the UK’s leading public arts company, aims to bring more art to the streets. Our first project together is Antony Gormley’s One and Other, in which Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth plays host to a different individual every hour of every day for 100 days. Sky Arts is streaming the event live online across the entire 100 days, as well as creating a weekly TV highlights programme.

To find out more vist The Bigger Picture website.