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Looking Forward: Challenges and Lessons Learned

 

We believe 2011 should be seen as a pivotal year in Sprint's CR journey. Although we'd previously made significant progress towards many of our goals, for the most part the efforts were functionally led and intended to either reduce costs or support our corporate reputation. These are both important goals, but deliver only a portion of the value CR can bring to an organization once it takes action to use CR as an engine for revenue growth. Sprint now recognizes that CR can be used to drive cost out of the business (e.g., eliminating waste and improving resource efficiency), create revenue by providing social and environmental technology solutions, and increase capital investment by targeting long-term Socially Responsible Investors (SRI). We've also seen the less measurable but equally important impact CR has in engaging our employees, increasing their loyalty to Sprint and enabling us to recruit the best and brightest who seek a company that mirrors their personal values. This recognition gives us a greater sense of purpose, allows us to more fully engage the creativity of our employees, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders to develop, sell and maintain products and services that enhance our environment and society as a whole.

As should be expected, this year of pivotal change came about through challenges: challenges regarding the role of CR in Sprint's strategy, the breadth of what should be included in our CR efforts, the discomfort of increasing disclosure on a broad range of topics and becoming advocates for regulation that benefitted our customers, the environment and society rather than just our own company. These challenges get at the heart of our culture and corporate identity and, in the end, with support from the top and bottom of our employee base, Sprint embraced this new vision. In 2012, we will begin bringing this message to bear both internally and in the market.

Throughout our 2011 CR Performance Summary and in this website, we have shared our successes and roadblocks. Although we've made tremendous progress, there is so much more we can do. We recognize the unlimited potential CR offers in fueling ingenuity, collaboration, satisfaction and, ultimately, business success. Capturing this potential and moving from recognition to business integration will not be easy, so in 2012, we have the following objectives to further our vision and ensure continued operational success:

  1. Formalize the responsibility of the Board of Directors in overseeing Sprint CR efforts
  2. Finalize and execute against a multi-year CR strategy and expand the scorecard to include social metrics
  3. Expand external assurance of our CR activity: GHG emissions, water, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
  4. Implement a CR Data Management System
  5. Intensify and expand our stakeholder-engagement efforts across the breadth of our CR priorities
  6. Explore options to more directly link executive and employee compensation or incentives to CR performance