Openreach, one of the UK’s largest telecommunications providers, partnered with Lighthouse Sustainability to build Carbon Literacy capability across the business, with a particular focus on upskilling commercial teams and supporting its wider net zero ambitions.
Through a mix of online, hybrid and face-to-face delivery, Lighthouse delivered Carbon Literacy Training, supported a Train the Trainer model, and licensed its course to help Openreach begin rolling out training internally while developing its own tailored programme. This gave Openreach the tools to start training quickly, while building internal capability to deliver Carbon Literacy more independently.
As a result, Openreach has trained and certified employees through multiple courses and generated measurable carbon-saving pledges, while beginning to build internal capability for ongoing Carbon Literacy delivery.
The challenge
While Openreach already had a strong sustainability profile, it faced a practical challenge in its commercial teams. Customer questions on carbon and sustainability were increasing, but teams did not always feel confident responding to them. At that point, the sustainability team was very small, so it was not practical for every query to be passed back to one team.
Internal decision-making also needed to become more consistent. Some teams evaluating contracts were giving extra weight to bids described as “green” or “eco”, even though that was not a strong enough basis for decision-making.
With government contracts forming an important part of the business, Openreach wanted to upskill key teams quickly so they could respond to sustainability questions more confidently, ask better questions and support better-informed decisions across bids, procurement and supplier conversations.
The delivery
We delivered tailored Carbon Literacy training to Openreach through a mix of face-to-face, virtual and hybrid sessions, reaching around 100 commercial team leads as well as a wider group of internal “friends of sustainability”. The content was adapted to Openreach’s strategy, language, sector and UK context, so it felt relevant to the realities of the business rather than off the shelf.
Our delivery style was also an important part of the partnership. Abby described our approach as credible, direct and able to challenge greenwashing while still being practical and easy to work with. That gave Openreach confidence that the sessions would land across the business, including with senior stakeholders.
While the virtual sessions worked well, the face-to-face workshops were especially valuable because they created more space for discussion before, during and after the training. That mattered in a large organisation, where bringing the right people together was often one of the biggest practical challenges.
To support longer-term rollout, Openreach also adopted a Train the Trainer model, giving the business more flexibility to build internal capability for future delivery. At the time of the interview, that internal rollout was still in development.
Impact
The impact of the Carbon Literacy Training was felt well beyond the sessions themselves. Abby described a clear shift in how sustainability was discussed across Openreach, with more people starting to ask sustainability questions and engage with the topic more confidently. Instead of the sustainability team carrying those conversations alone, the training helped create a broader base of understanding across the business.
That shift translated into more meaningful action too. Abby described how the training helped move some teams beyond smaller ideas, such as reusable coffee cups, towards bigger initiatives with greater potential impact. One team, for example, kept pushing for a technical solution that would allow an item to be returned to stock and reused rather than skipped and replaced — something that could deliver both environmental and financial value.
Alongside these wider cultural shifts, the programme delivered measurable outcomes: 8 courses delivered, 99 people trained, 73 certified, and 45,180kg CO2e in potential carbon savings linked to pledged actions.
Next steps
Openreach is now focused on building on this early momentum by extending Carbon Literacy Training into the parts of the business with the biggest influence. Rather than taking a broad-brush approach, the next phase is about training the teams with the biggest levers to pull, particularly those involved in finance, procurement and supplier relationships, where stronger sustainability understanding can shape better decisions across the value chain.
The Train the Trainer model will be central to that next stage. By building internal capability, Openreach can roll out training more flexibly and at a pace that works for a large and complex organisation.
Over time, that creates a stronger foundation for sustainability to become embedded more widely across the business, while also supporting more informed conversations around suppliers, procurement and Scope 3 emissions.
If you want to turn climate targets into action, talk to the Lighthouse Sustainability team today!