Turkcell Chairman of the Board Bülent Aksu evaluated the company’s efforts in the fields of sustainability, social contribution and digitalization. Aksu stated that awareness of the climate crisis and sustainability issues has increased worldwide, especially with the pandemic.
Expressing that 78 percent of the society believes that large companies also play a role in the fight against climate change, Aksu explained the sensitivity of the company on this issue as follows:
“We design the technologies we produce with a sense of responsibility towards nature, the environment and society, and we develop all our business processes with a human and environment-oriented corporate approach. In the face of climate change, we aim to transform our business into a more environmentally friendly, more efficient and sustainable model by using the power of technology. In this direction; We have targets to meet our electricity consumption from 100% renewable sources by 2030 and to be net zero carbon by 2050.”
We evaluated CES 2022 with Turkcell CEO
Turkcell participated in the CES 2022 event as one of the most important technology companies of our country. We evaluated CES with Turkcell CEO.
Turkcell continues its investments in renewable energy
Saying that they prefer renewable energy sources especially in their business processes, Turkcell Chairman of the Board Bülent Aksu shared that they also focus on process improvements that will increase energy efficiency and savings. Aksu stated that they shared all their work on sustainability transparently with all stakeholders and the public in the Integrated Annual Report; made the following statement:
“We continue our investments in this field in order to become a company that not only consumes renewable energy but also produces renewable energy. In this context, I would like to happily state that we met all of our electricity consumption in 2021 by supplying it from 100% renewable energy sources. We produced 1.6 million kWh of electricity from renewable sources in 2020 with a total of 3 solar energy projects we own.
In 2021, we purchased the İzmir Karadağ Wind Power Plant (RES). As Turkcell, we can meet the electricity needs of 2,500 base stations with this WPP, which has a total installed capacity of 18 MW and an annual generation capacity of approximately 67.5 GWh. We continue our efforts to further increase the capacity of our İzmir Karadağ Wind Power Plant in the coming period.”
“Sustainable Indexed Loan”
Bülent Aksu stated that they accept the sustainability-oriented 2030 and 2050 commitments of the company not only as an environmental responsibility, but also as a corporate obligation. In this context, he shared that they were pleased to see that the stable performance of the company contributed positively to their work on “sustainable finance”.
Thanks to the agreement signed with BNP Paribas last month, Turkcell increased the amount of the sustainable indexed loan it allocated in 2019 to 70 million Euros and updated its maturity to 5 years. Aksu said the following on the subject:
“We combined these commitments in the field of sustainability with our goal of diversifying our financing resources, and we updated the ‘Sustainability Indexed Loan’ agreement that we signed with BNP Paribas, by increasing the amount and extending the maturity. Thanks to this loan, we will be able to reduce our financing costs while fulfilling our responsibility towards the environment by reducing our carbon footprint. We will continue to lead the way for the increased use of such resources.“
Robot Hand project
Aksu states that the company does not evaluate sustainability only in an environmental sense; He said that he works with the mission of creating positive value with technology in the social, environmental and economic fields. He said the following about the Robot Hand project, which is an example in this context:
“Since the day we were founded, we care about turning the equalizing power of technology into social benefit. We see it as our mission to implement projects that aim to provide the society with equal opportunities in accessing information, education and social life. In this context, we care about providing social benefit by using technology and design with a human focus.
Robotel Turkey Association was a platform where economical and usable mechanical hands produced with 3D printers in custom sizes and qualities were shared free of charge for individuals, especially children, who need hand and finger prosthesis. We, as Turkcell, wanted to support those who cannot reach or use the prosthesis due to finger and hand deformation in cooperation with the Robotel Association. With the donation support we gave, we started to work on the 120 waiting hands. In addition, we have started to provide training to our Intelligence Power students with this Association. With the contributions of our students, all robot hands will be prepared and delivered to those in need within 1 year.”
Intelligence Power project
Turkcell Chairman of the Board of Directors Bülent Aksu also gave information about the company’s Intelligence Power project. In this direction, Aksu expressed the following sentences:
“The Intelligence Power Project, which we realized in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education, is one of our valuable works in terms of preparation for the future world that will be shaped by Industry 4.0. We are proud to serve our students and teachers with 70 Intelligence Power classes, which we have implemented in 42 cities from the north to the south, from the east to the west, in order to benefit our country.
At the Intelligence Power Technology Laboratories, our students develop new projects by receiving training on artificial intelligence, coding, space sciences, robotics, smart home and cloud technologies. Our students, who have won more than 400 national and international awards so far, provide us with an important indicator in terms of the impact and outputs of the project.”
Atmosware
Bülent Aksu said that today, apart from digitalization, a new economy that transforms with the power of technology has begun to form. Saying that software is one of the most important areas for our country to stand out in the global technology competition, Aksu announced that they have established a new generation software company called Atmosware by starting a local and national software campaign to invest more in Turkey’s own resources in this area and to support the employees in this field. Regarding the subject, Aksu shared the following:
“We aim to develop new generation working, learning and development models in our country and to produce more added value in the field of technology. In this way, we can support the technology-focused competent workforce in our country and grow Turkey’s technology ecosystem efficiently together.
Atmosware was established to train qualified software developers and produce quality code. First of all, we prepared our roadmap to cover the software needs of our Turkcell group companies. Then, we aim to aspire to work in a way that will directly meet the software needs of companies, rather than the need for software developers.”
Stating that they aim to strengthen employment in the software field with specially designed training programs, Bulent Aksu, ended his speech as follows:
“With our new software company, we will benefit the ecosystem for the increasing need for software developers. We need to approximate our rate of software developers in employment to the rate in developed countries. In this direction, we took a step forward with the protocol we signed with the Ministry of National Education in November. We started a new education and employment campaign with the ‘Who Writes the Future – Investing in Youth, Software for the Future’ Program. With the vocational training program implemented for the first time in Turkey, senior university students and graduates will be provided with training, certification and employment opportunities in the field of software technologies.
One-to-one mentoring support will also be provided throughout the 6-month program. With the certificate we will give to the participants who successfully complete the program, we will provide the opportunity to find a job in Turkcell group companies as software developers. In addition, the participants; After a high-level training, which reflects Turkcell’s institutional knowledge and prepared by Turkcell Academy, they will be one step ahead in employment in different companies with their vocational qualification certificates.”