Cooperation

Magyar Telekom Group, in line with its declared commitment to sustainable development, takes an active part in various forms of professional activity and forums related to sustainability and environmental protection in Hungary and internationally.

Global Compact

The objective set by this initiative of the United Nations is to make the operations of companies more responsible/sustainable globally, through the voluntary commitment by businesses. Companies that sign up, undertake to run their operations in accordance with certain core values in the areas of human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption. The initiative was launched on July 26, 2000 and have been signed by 5000 organizations, so far, in 120 countries worldwide.Magyar Telekom was the first among the Hungarian info-communications companies to join this global initiative in April 2009. 
The ten principles: 

Human rights

  • Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
  • make sure that they not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labor

  • Business should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
  • the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor;
  • the effective abolition of child labor; and
  • the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

  • Businesses are asked to support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
  • undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
  • encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-corruption

  • Businesses should work against corruption in all forms, including extortion and bribery.

OECD Guidelines

Magyar Telekom is the first among Hungarian companies to commit to adhere to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The guidelines are recommendations addressed by governments to multinational enterprises: principles and standards for responsible business conduct.Businesses signing up to the guidelines undertake to adhere to certain principles and standards in the following areas:

  • General guidelines
  • Information disclosure
  • Employment and industrial relations
  • Environment
  • Combating bribery
  • Consumer interests
  • Science and technology
  • Competition
  • Taxations

ETNO

A very important one of our co-operation is ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association) Sustainability Working Group, which works on the harmonisation of information and communication technology sector and social – economic – environmental triple bottom line interests. The world faces with serious environmental problems among which climate change is one of the most urgent challenges. Magyar Telekom has recognised that information and communication technologies (ICT) can become a significant part of the solution in climate change; therefore in 2002 started a project for analysing this, exploring opportunities and establishing European actions in the frame of ETNO together with other telecommunications companies. (the project study can be downloaded from the website of ETNO ). In 2005 the work continued as a joint initiative together with WWF aiming the following goals:

  • ICT is recognised as an important part of the solution for combating climate change in Europe
  • Key actors have climate change strategy for ICT
  • Concrete "ICT - Climate change" programmes are started in Europe by 2007

HBLF

Back in November 2007, in the framework of cooperation in the HBLF (Hungarian Business Leaders Forum), the company subscribed to the core principles incorporated in the document published jointly by the HBLF and ILO (International Labour Office) titled “ Code on Organizational Diversity and Inclusion ” and was also among the first to join the Romaster program launched in the autumn of 2007. The aim of the latter initiative is to help disadvantaged and Roma secondary school students, not only with scholarships, but also by offering them a network of people and skills with the help of a mentor appointed by the company. This help will considerably improve their chances of being admitted to an academic institution and thus to obtain academic qualification, as well as of being able to cope in the labor market later.

Romaster

The Romaster program is one of the first initiatives through which players of the business sphere (IBM, Raiffeisen Bank, Holcim, Magyar Telekom, etc.) join forces, without any state involvement, to address an urgent and sensitive social issue and take part in improving or solving the situation

"Vegyél vissza"

Among others, Magyar Telekom has been one of the founders of and providers of the professional background and networking system for the „Vegyél Vissza” climat protection program the target group of which is the 15-25 years old age group, who may become tomorrow’s decision makers. Similarly to the company’s climat protection program, this program relies on Al Gore’s film initially accompanied by discussions. The goal of the initiative is to provide a kind of tool for young people to enable them to realize what they can do, on the other hand, to engage various teams in a competition, in which they can collect points through their actions. If you are aware of young people who belong to the above-mentioned age-group, or even they may be your children, we encourage you to take the news of the initiative either to the pool of your friends or to the school and to take part in it. For further information see: http://www.vegyelvissza.hu

In addition to these the company group has been involved in several environmental, social (e.g. The Environmental Protection Committee of AmCham , National Human Policy Association) and professional (e.g. EURESCOM, ETSI, ITU-T) initiatives and cooperation.