Virgin Media O2 has launched a new Responsible Business Plan that puts circularity, climate action, digital inclusion and online safety at the centre of how it says it will run the business through 2030. The company said the plan embeds sustainability across the full lifecycle of its operations, while its own ethos remains that every device should live twice.
The group, which sits behind the O2 Recycle scheme, pledged to double the number of people buying refurbished devices from the company by 2030 and to double participation in O2 Recycle over the same period. It also plans to expand its partnership-led reuse initiatives into 30 cities by the end of the decade, a target that gives the plan a practical shape beyond broad environmental language. Chief executive Lutz Schüler described the programme as more than a strategy, saying it is how the company does business, and framed it as a way of giving technology a second life.
The new targets land against a record the company says is already sizeable. Virgin Media O2 said more than 12 million consumers were encouraged to take circular actions under its Better Connections Plan from 2022 to 2025. It said O2 Recycle has processed more than four million devices since launching in 2009 and returned more than £356 million to consumers, with zero parts from recycled devices going to landfill. The company also said more than 7.5 million pieces of customer equipment have been repaired, reused or recycled.
The broader plan stretches well beyond waste and resale. Virgin Media O2 reaffirmed its commitment to net zero carbon emissions across its operations, products and supply chain by the end of 2040, and said it will source 100% carbon-free energy from UK suppliers. It also set a goal of supporting 500,000 low-income households with essential connectivity by 2030 and helping six million people navigate the online world safely and confidently.
The timing matters because the company is setting out its next phase after the Better Connections Plan, while policy pressure around electrical waste is also building. In August, UK circular economy minister Mary Creagh announced moves affecting retailer requirements around waste electricals, underscoring how reuse and recycling are moving higher up the agenda for large consumer businesses. Virgin Media O2 is presenting its response as a business model shift rather than a campaign, but the tension is obvious: the company is promising to make circularity central even as it asks more customers to buy, return and recycle in the same ecosystem.
What comes next is measurable. Over the next five years, Virgin Media O2 has to prove that refurbished device sales, recycling participation, reuse partnerships and digital support can all scale at once. If it does, the company will have turned a familiar sustainability slogan into a test of whether telecoms can make circular business as ordinary as selling a new handset.
