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Better business
Better business
We’ve been transforming the media and entertainment industry for 30 years. We reach 120 million people across Europe. We have 31,000 brilliant colleagues at Sky and we work with 11,000 suppliers across the world. We believe the way we do business has a big impact on everyone. So we’re always looking for new ways to do the right thing for our customers, our people, our partners and the world.
Our customers
The best service. The highest editorial standards. The strongest privacy protections. And products that are safe, easy and enjoyable to use. It’s the least we can do for our customers.
Everyone should be able to enjoy the TV they love, when and how they want. So when we’re designing Sky products and services, we make them as accessible as we can. We work closely with our customers to get it right. With Sky Q, high contrast display, voice search and voice control are available as standard, with voice over on the Sky Q app.
We also make audio-described content throughout our original TV series as well as 30% of content across our Sky channels. Our describers love the challenge of getting to the heart of the best new shows for our partially-sighted viewers. They have brought Game of Thrones, Patrick Melrose, Chernobyl and other unmissable series to life for them. Hear more about it here.
We’re adding more programmes with subtitles to all Sky Channels, and to our on-demand services. We’re also working with other broadcasters to make sure you can watch their on-demand subtitled content through Sky. Here’s a day in the life of our subtitling team.
We are a major funder of the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust, to help promote its use in TV. We’re proud to exceed our quotas for subtitles and audio descriptions across all Sky channels.
To find out more about the tools we offer to support people with visual, hearing, dexterity or cognitive impairments, across everything we do, visit our accessibility website.
We aim to do more than anyone to put families first and to keep children safe. Sky Broadband Shield helps protect kids from content that’s not suitable for them, across all internet-connected devices. Sky Broadband Buddy lets you manage each screen in your home from an app on your phone or tablet. It’s like a remote for the internet with loads of great features. And our SPACETALK kids' watch lets children make and receive calls and texts from known contacts but doesn't have a camera, access to apps or social media.
The Sky Kids app gives each little one tailored content that’s right for their age. Families can also limit viewing time. It’s the first app to get the Mumsnet seal of approval.
The Sky Q Parents' Guide, created with Common Sense Media, gives in-depth ratings on over 3,500 movies, so families can make informed choices about what to watch.
As well as our great product features, we give families access to the latest and best advice to be safe online with our partnership with Internet Matters.
Sky plays an active role in industry discussions through our Board presence on the UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS), Internet Matters and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). We have also shown policy leadership through the independent report we commissioned, ‘Keeping Consumers Safe Online: Legislating for platform accountability for online content’, with the ambition to make the UK the safest place to be online.
All of us are managing more of our lives through our phones. So we’re making it easier for customers to connect to Sky, on the go. Our My Sky Digital service app has been downloaded more than 1.9 million times and enables customers to check their broadband speed, review their monthly bill, change how and when they pay and get help.
In the UK, for another year, we topped the industry regulator’s customer service satisfaction charts.
Many customers have been with us for years, so we’ve launched loyalty programmes to thank our customers for choosing Sky.
Our ground-breaking 24-hour news channel reports on the issues shaping the world.
Sky News is an editorially independent part of Sky UK, overseen by an independent Sky News Board and with its own editorial and ethics policies. Last year, Sky News became part of the Trust Project, an international campaign to increase transparency and trust in news.
Our people
We have 31,000 talented colleagues across Europe. We’re making Sky a great workplace for everyone – a place where we can all do the best work of our lives.
To serve our customers, our team needs to represent them. We welcome people from all walks of life into our Sky team and we’re passionate about treating everyone fairly and with respect. From recruitment to development, we focus on inclusivity at every stage of the Sky experience.
Inside Sky, six networks champion diversity and offer support: women@sky, LGBT+@sky, Multiculture@Sky, Parents@Sky, Armed Forces@Sky and Body&Mind@Sky. These thriving networks provide peer-to-peer support. They give communities within Sky a collective voice, to champion the things that matter most to them.
Through a survey every six months, we listen to our people. We compare scores between demographic groups to see if people are having a shared experience of working here. And we take action to create fairness when we identify a gap.
To bring fresh perspectives into the business and give young people a break in their early careers, we offer work experience and internships. Some are targeted at people from under-represented backgrounds. Visit our Early Careers web page to find out more.
To make sure a diverse group of people are getting opportunities to enter the industry, we work closely with independent production companies, as well as organisations like the Journalism Diversity Fund and the Creative Diversity Network.
We are support industry-wide programmes including BAFTA Elevate and Mama Youth, programmes which encourage diversity and inclusion in film and TV.
We’re increasing our investment in original, locally-produced content on TV, to make sure the lives of people in all our markets are reflected on-screen. Sky Sports are proud supporters of Stonewall's Rainbow Laces campaign, combating homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in sport and society.
We celebrate diversity. Because different people, with different perspectives make Sky a better business. Achieving a better gender and ethnic balance is important to us, so we’re investing in programmes to help us get there.
Gender
In March 2018 we began releasing our annual Gender Pay Gap Reports.
Like most organisations our gender pay gap is caused by having
proportionally more men than women in our higher pay quartiles. The two
reasons for this are there are more men in our most senior positions and
in our higher paying role types such as tech or digital.
Our 2019 Gender Pay Gap report is below and Infographic here.
We’re focused on building a sustainable approach that will improve our talent pipeline and reduce our gender pay gap. We have targets and dedicated programmes to address underrepresentation and know our “try before you apply” programmes like Women in Home service work well.
Internally our employee ‘Women@Sky’ network enables both men and women to connect and share experiences and provides personal development activities for network members. With the input of our Parents@Sky network, we have a flexible and family-friendly culture to better support people juggling home and work responsibilities: we provide a range of on-site services, have improved technology, enhanced paternity/secondary carer leave and have introduced an emergency family care benefit. Combined with our generous maternity and shared parental leave, we've giving parents and carers great choices to balance careers and family.
We’re also recognised as one of the Times Top 50 employers for Women.
You can view all our reports here.
Ethnicity
In some parts of Sky, we don’t have as many BAME colleagues as we should. Relative to the general population, we’re under-represented. So we’ve given ourselves ambitious targets for our Content, Corporate, Commercial and Operational teams and we’re working to meet them. On-screen, we also have targets to make sure our entertainment, news and sports output is as representative as possible.
Our multiculture@sky network and BAME champions are big advocates for celebrating diversity with events and inspiring role models. And we’re helping teams to break taboos and talk about race issues and workplace tensions. These discussions are facilitated by Sky colleagues sharing their own experiences and they provide valuable learnings.
We are long-term supporters of the MAMA Youth Project, which provides media and TV training to young people from under-represented groups. And we’re proud to be listed on the Best Employers for Race 2018.
Read more about Inclusion at Sky on our careers pages
Find our people data on p28 of our Bigger Picture Impact Report
We have thousands of talented colleagues, working in different countries, on everything from content to technology to customer service. We’d like to think they all have jobs they love, and that Sky enables them to do the best work of their lives.
Our staff engagement levels consistently outperform external benchmarks in the UK and Italy. We also focus on safety and our field-teams’ safety culture exceeds the UK benchmark. We support people’s wellbeing through great workplace design, culture, employee benefits and our employee-led networks.
Learning is another critical part of the colleague experience at Sky. We’re moving away from instructor-led classroom training towards digital learning that’s available anytime, to everyone.
Find out more about life at Sky from the people who work here.
Our suppliers
Without our suppliers we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. We’re committed to great partnerships, respecting and protecting the rights of everyone we work with.
Throughout our supply chains, we have a shared understanding of human rights, environmental and governance principles, to drive the way we work together.
We believe that collaboration also helps achieve long-term positive change. That’s why we’re members of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), Centre for Sport and Human Rights and TV Industry Human Rights Forum. We're committed to the Sporting Chance Principles and working with our suppliers to implement the RBA Code of Conduct.
All our suppliers go through our responsible sourcing risk assessments. We conduct human rights, health, safety and environmental audits on tier one and two suppliers for the lifecycle of our products, from raw materials to the recyclers that dismantle our products at end-of-life. We support our suppliers to make changes if necessary as a result of these audits. Our audit teams also attend third party audits and offer training to help our suppliers make sustainable improvements.
We also support our suppliers’ risk assessments across their own supply chains. This helps ensure their partners are working to our high standards. We also help them to make changes if necessary.
We’re part of WWF’s Sustainable Timber pledge and commit to sourcing all our wood and paper from sustainably managed sources and require all wood and paper to be recycled, FSC, or PEFC by 2020. Find out more about our wood and paper purchasing policy here.
We manufacture products which use minerals and are committed to making informed choices about responsibly sourced minerals in our supply chains. That’s why we’re mapping these supply chains and are working to implement the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Mineral Supply Chains.
We respect everyone’s human rights at Sky. We do the right thing by everyone we reach: our colleagues, contractors, customers, viewers, people who feature in our content, workers in our supply chains, visitors to our sites and the communities around them.
Our policies and approach to human rights are based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions. Our Responsible Sourcing Policy, Human Rights Policy and Ways of Working set out our expectations for upholding human rights. We publish our Modern Slavery Statement annually.
As our understanding of the risks evolves, so does our approach. Our human rights steering group brings representatives from across the business together. It’s their role to address any issues that arise and to identify opportunities for us to take the lead. We also train all our people, from our production teams to the people taking calls on our helpline.
Our environmental impact
We want to protect the planet. Through Sky Ocean Rescue, we’re campaigning for change, giving millions of people ideas to cut single-use plastic. We’re passing on plastic at Sky, and in 2006 we became the world’s first carbon-neutral media company. We have 10 bold targets and commitments for 2020.
We’re always working to reduce our environmental impact, guided by our Responsible Business strategy. We’ve focused our attention on our energy, travel, waste and water towards our 2020 targets.
We have already achieved a 55% reduction in our carbon intensity and a 39% reduction in business travel emissions. We send 0% of waste from Sky-owned sites to landfill. We recycle 100% of food waste at our main offices and have successfully reduced water consumption per person too. This year we also increased fuel efficiency across our fleet by 15%, so have achieved six of our ten targets ahead of time. We are now setting our path towards net zero carbon by 2050 across our value chain.
We are increasing our energy efficiency through infrastructure updates, including replacing the main generators at our Osterley campus in the UK and a new Trigeneration plant in Milan, which will help us cut an estimated 2,300 tons of CO2 every year. We’re pushing forward on fleet efficiency too. To find new ways to reduce emissions, we’re reviewing progress, piloting vans running on renewable fuels, offering training on effective driving and installing ‘black boxes’ into our vehicles. As members of the London Business Climate Leaders Group, we’re working towards a zero-carbon city with the Mayor of London, by implementing new circular economy initiatives and piloting renewably-fuelled vehicles.
We are improving our use of renewable energy at Sky and through our supply chain. We encourage our suppliers to invest in and use more renewable energy. We’re a leading member of the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Supply Chain Programme. After working with us on energy efficiency, Zinwell , one of our manufacturing partners in China, installed large-scale solar panels at their site in Shenzhen, China. The first of their kind in the district, they will produce 1.4 megawatts a year providing around 50% of the electricity Zinwell use to make Sky products. Two other suppliers in China, WNC and Picotronics, are also taking action on renewable energy and efficiency.
Read more about our environmental performance in our Bigger Picture Impact Report.
We changed our products and packaging to remove all single-use plastic. We started in October 2017, with the NOW TV Smart Stick, Sky Soundbox and Sky Q box. We replaced the traditional plastic seals and bags with natural adhesives, cork pads and layered cardboard, to protect each product in an environmentally-friendly way. Our Now TV pre-paid cards, anti-theft device and Sky magazine are also free of plastic wrapping. Since the end of 2018, all our products have been free of single-use plastic. This increased our recycling rates and helped us spread the word about cutting single-use plastic.
We’re also making design improvements that allow us to refurbish more products. We can now replace some parts without dismantling set-top boxes. We are also reducing the amount of energy our products consume.
When they don’t need them anymore, customers can return old set top boxes and other products. We either refurbish or recycle them, ensuring every product has the maximum lifespan.
We work with production companies and partners to measure the environmental impact of the programmes they make.
In the UK and Ireland, we’re raising awareness of environmental issues within the production industry through the BAFTA albert consortium. When we commission new shows, we use BAFTA’s carbon calculator to measure carbon emissions and to set genre-specific targets.
We’re also ensuring the programmes we make in studios, on location, in outside sports and news broadcasts and at Sky Store are free from single-use plastic. We’ve removed 90,000 water bottles per year, plus disposable coffee cups, plastic cutlery and polystyrene at our host broadcasts. Sky Sports are also working with governing bodies to improve the sustainability of events we broadcast from, but don’t host ourselves.
Sharing what we learn
We’re leading on single-use plastic, and we’re sharing our knowledge to help others take action. By 2020, we’ll remove all single-use plastic from our business and supply chain. We’re using our voice to campaign for change, working with WWF to inspire action on ocean pollution. And we’re investing £25 million to find innovative alternatives to single-use plastic through Sky Ocean Ventures.
Find out more by downloading our reports.
Contributing to culture
We strengthen the cultural economy, in all our markets. We invest in robust independent news reporting, in the Arts, in sports and in original local content. We are part of the cultural fabric of the nation, creating jobs and boosting the economy. Through our activities, in 2018 we contributed £26 billion across Europe.
We’re proud to pay our fair share of taxes, and paid over £1.8 billion euros in tax last year.
We create jobs, for people from all walks of life. We employ over 31,000 people and we support the jobs of over 400,000 people (this figure was independently calculated by Oxford Economics in July 2019).
Find out more about how we invest in the next generation through Sky Scholars, Sky Academy Studios and Mama Youth.
We want to make a positive impact in the communities in which we live and work. So we build local campaigns and partner with good causes.
We use the London Benchmarking Group model to analyse our community contribution. Last year , we contributed over £21.9 million to our communities across Europe.
