Virgin Media

I'm often lucky enough to be invited to various events and conferences to speak about the Virgin Media approach to sustainability reporting. Even after two years, our decision to ditch the hardcopy report in favour of a more engaging, behind-the-scenes, digital approach is still often commended as innovative and groundbreaking, which is great. Naturally, many of the people I meet at these events do not work in a digital business like Virgin Media, and they often ask me how our approach could work for them. It’s an interesting question, and one I thought I’d reflect on in a blog. Not only this, but having just launched the business and the community phase of the ‘Our digital future’ programme, it felt like a good time to raise the issue. So here are my thoughts on some of the key elements of our approach, and how they might be applicable to your company, no matter what type of industry you operate in…

Virgin Media are listening to what the UK thinks about ‘Our digital future’. Over the past few months we’ve invited digital pioneers and experts, MPs, business leaders and the wider UK public to share their views about the impact of digital technology on people, business and communities. Recently, we turned the focus of the conversation towards the issues that children can face online and we’ve had some really valuable feedback from our experts on the best way to keep kids safe, happy and healthy.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is not big; it’s massive. As the world’s largest technology show, this is the event where everyone from small Korean start-ups to the likes of Sony and Samsung show off their latest gizmos for release this year. I was lucky enough to go there for the week and while I didn’t manage to see everything (it really is that huge!), I saw enough to make me realise that gadgets and technology are going to keep changing every aspect of our lives, at an ever-increasing pace.

In October, Virgin Media, and the other three largest Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the UK – BT, Sky and TalkTalk – launched a Code of Practice with the aim of supporting parents to protect their families online. The Code outlines a core set of commitments to help inform parents about the options available to them to control how and when their children access content online...