Hey there! Welcome to the Marketer Of The Month blog!

We recently interviewed Monika Tenerowicz for our monthly podcast – ‘Marketer of the Month’! We had some amazing insightful conversations with Monika and here’s what we discussed about-

1. Explores the evolution of the Polish telecom market spanning the last two decades.

2. Highlights the rigorous regulations governing Poland’s telecom market, encompassing competition and accepted business norms.

3. Role as Climate Officer steering Orange Polska’s journey towards sustainability.

4. Details Orange Polska’s climate strategy, prioritizing the reduction of carbon footprint and fostering sustainability.

5. Examines the critical role of Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) in securing renewable energy sources, addressing challenges unique to the Polish market.

6. Counters the misconception that sustainability incurs high costs, underscoring its potential to bolster business outcomes and reputation.

7. Orange Polska’s commitment to circularity, encompasses the refurbishment of customer-premise equipment and responsible management of electronic waste.

About our host:

Dr. Saksham Sharda is the Chief Information Officer at Outgrow.co. He specializes in data collection, analysis, filtering, and transfer by means of widgets and applets. Interactive, cultural, and trending widgets designed by him have been featured on TrendHunter, Alibaba, ProductHunt, New York Marketing Association, FactoryBerlin, Digimarcon Silicon Valley, and at The European Affiliate Summit.

About our guest:

Monika Tenerowicz, an esteemed Climate Officer at Orange Polska, is a seasoned professional dedicated to environmental stewardship. With a wealth of expertise, her open-minded approach cultivates innovative solutions, positioning Orange Polska as a leader in sustainability. Her efficient leadership drives impactful climate initiatives, aligning corporate goals with environmental responsibility at Orange Polska. Her strategic contributions highlight the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainability and environmental excellence.

EPISODE 177: From Regulation to Renewal: Orange Polska’s Blueprint for a Sustainable Telecom Tomorrow

The Intro!

Saksham Sharda: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Outgrow’s Marketer of the Month. I’m your host, Dr. Saksham Sharda, and I’m the creative director at Outgrow. co. And for this month we are going to interview Monika Tenerowicz, who is the Climate Officer at Orange Polska.

Monika Tenerowicz: Great to be here. Thank you.

Don’t have time to read? No problem, just watch the Podcast!

Or you can just listen to it on Spotify!

The Rapid Fire Round!

Saksham Sharda: So, let’s start with the first question in the rapid-fire round. At what age do you want to retire?

Monika Tenerowicz: 65.

Saksham Sharda: How long does it take you to get ready in the mornings?

Monika Tenerowicz: 30 minutes.

Saksham Sharda: Most embarrassing moment of your life?

Monika Tenerowicz: Pass.

Saksham Sharda: Favorite color?

Monika Tenerowicz: Blue.

Saksham Sharda: What time of day are you most inspired?

Monika Tenerowicz: Morning.

Saksham Sharda: How many hours of sleep can you survive on?

Monika Tenerowicz: Eight.

Saksham Sharda: Fill in the blank. An upcoming telecom trend is _____.

Monika Tenerowicz: Sustainability.

Saksham Sharda: The city in which the best kiss of your life happened?

Monika Tenerowicz: Warsaw.

Saksham Sharda: Pick one. Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

Monika Tenerowicz: Pass.

Saksham Sharda: The biggest mistake of your career?

Monika Tenerowicz: I don’t think I have one.

Saksham Sharda: How do you relax?

Monika Tenerowicz: Gardening.

Saksham Sharda: How many cups of coffee do you drink per day?

Monika Tenerowicz: One.

Saksham Sharda: A habit of yours that you hate?

Monika Tenerowicz: Pass.

Saksham Sharda: The most valuable skill you learned in life.

Monika Tenerowicz: Flexibility.

Saksham Sharda: Your favorite Netflix show.

Monika Tenerowicz: Pass.

Saksham Sharda: One-word description of your leadership style.

Monika Tenerowicz: Inclusive.

Saksham Sharda: A top priority in your daily schedule.

Monika Tenerowicz: Unwinding after work.

Saksham Sharda: Ideal vacation spot.

Monika Tenerowicz: Somewhere at the seaside.

Saksham Sharda: The key factor for maintaining a work-life balance.

Monika Tenerowicz: Flexibility.

Saksham Sharda: Memorable career milestone.

Monika Tenerowicz: I’ll have to pass on that.

Saksham Sharda: The last song you’ve been listening to?

Monika Tenerowicz: Massive Attack, probably.

Saksham Sharda: The last film that you saw that had a good impression on you.

Monika Tenerowicz: A good impression, the Marvels.

The Big Questions!

Saksham Sharda: Alright, that’s the end of the rapid fire. Okay, we move on to the longer questions.

Michael Olsen: I take it from there with Jen Dore and, and vi. We welcome today to this podcast Monika Tenerowicz who is a climate officer for Orange Polska. I just like to start by establishing just what Orange Polska is. Some people who try to investigate it might be dissuaded by the fact that the main website seems to be in the Polish language, which of course is understandable. But I take it as a mobile provider, but they launched it into an ISP service. Yes, Orange Polska is the leading Polish Telecom, and we work on all segments of the telecom markets. So we provide services for individual customers for businesses and wholesale services too. Orange Polska emerged from the former incumbent, so Polska merged essentially with a mobile operator Orange. That’s how it began. Okay. So your origin is back to the main state telephone company. I guess it once was a monopoly, but then obviously other separate competitors came onto the scene to compete with you.

Monika Tenerowicz: At its core. Yes. And it’s changed vastly over the past 20 years.

Michael Olsen: In what ways?

Monika Tenerowicz: On the one hand of course the market changed a lot. We now have four big players in the mobile market and even more in the fixed market long-time Orange Polska. And one of the competitors is the sole convergent telecoms. So offering both fixed services and mobile services. Over the past two or three years, I have seen two tendencies in the Polish market. First is the one to merge to consolidate, which leads to more and more competitors heading the conversion way.

Michael Olsen: Also, a consolidation of the market may be a lesser degree of competition, but surely there’s a competition authority within the country at the EU level then keeping an eye on that?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes, we are a very heavily regulated market in Poland.

Michael Olsen: Heavily regulated. So not only for competition but for certainly not price setting or what do you feel is particularly heavy in the regulation?

Monika Tenerowicz: There have been some regulations over the past years. However, there are still parts of the business where tables are essentially accepted by the regulatory office, Accepted or imposed? Accepted.

Michael Olsen: That’s very interesting. But of course, what is your particular role as a climate officer? What does that mean? And, if you could provide specific projects or examples of the sort of thing you get involved with that would be very valuable.

Monika Tenerowicz: Well, first of all, I think that what’s crucial to underline is that this is not well, and by this I mean, the sustainable transition of a business. This is not a one-person role. This is an effort made by the entire organization, by the entire company. So what I do in my work is work with various business lines, and support them in their transition toward a more sustainable and more balanced business model in terms of climate impact.

Michael Olsen: Okay, because you know that brings up the subject I’d like you to address to be able to beat down because some suspicious people might think that well everyone has a climate officer because they have to even greenwash. Surely that’s not the case. And you can explain hopefully, or presumably how there’s more commitment than just that on the part of Orange Polska to doing something.

Monika Tenerowicz: Okay. So in the case of Orange Polsko our climate strategy dates back to 2021, and we published our climate ambitions in April of 2021. However, we’ve been doing much even before that. And it was scattered and it wasn’t named. Main efforts come from the assumption that efficiency should be the way to go right back in 2020, what we did was a first approach towards calculating our carbon footprint towards checking which are the priority areas for us to tackle at this point here and now. It turned out that because we are an infrastructural telecom in scopes one and two the emissions coming directly from our operations fuel that we burn within our network, the fuel that we burn within our fleet which is essential if you have a network to maintain and the energy that we use to power the network. We have 18,000 co-point sets within the infrastructure that need electric energy. Those are the main challenges for us to tackle. In Poland today, over 70% of electric energy comes from burning fossil fuels. Three years ago, this share was even higher. So we decided that energy is the first focus for us. And what we did was look into renewables essentially back in 2020, in the spring of 2020. So right when the pandemic hit it was March beginning of April. We signed our first power purchase agreement, which allows us to have wind energy directly from this producer. This was the first corporate power purchase agreement of that type, not only in Poland but also within the orange footprint across Europe. And one of the first ones across Europe, if I’m correct this was the first step forlly. And so we signed the agreement in early 2020. But the first results of this PPA came to fruition only last year, in the fourth quarter of last year, because this is another thing that we strongly believe that sustainability is not an action, it’s a process. It’s not enough to do A, B, C. Yeah. The thing is to focus on the process to establish milestones and the monitoring system that will allow you to manage what you do. Since 2020, we’ve signed four more agreements in this formula. So PPA, some of them are already active. Some of them are still being built because, because that’s the situation in Poland, essentially, renewable powers still need to be developed most of the time.

Michael Olsen: I wanted to ask, you said you signed up winding I’m not aware, but maybe that’s just me. What sort of wind installations, if any in Poland, if you ask me the nearest would be the ones off Denmark, under Danish. But they’re excessive windmills even on the Polish mainland or offshore.

Monika Tenerowicz: Mainland at this point, mainland there’s a discussion in terms of regulations about offshore wind power. There is still to be developed. It is moving towards the desired direction, but there’s still some work to do.

Michael Olsen: Horse in the Baltic. They might wanna build in?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yeah, but at this point, it’s mainly a land installation. And actually, this market has been somewhat crippled by some regulations in the midst. So we are still hoping for the regulations to change, be loosened essentially, and allow for more powers for renewables, especially when Right.

Michael Olsen: You talked about signing the agreement in 2020 and only it’s getting going in 2021 if Correctly. And any delay that was due to that regulation?

Monika Tenerowicz: No, no, that was due to the investment process.

Michael Olsen: Okay. You were signing for something you didn’t exist yet?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes, in 2020, the first PPA agreement meant that two new installations specifically for the needs of oranPolskaska would be built. We have a partner that owns those installations, those farms. But we are the only ones who benefit from them. And we only saw the results in the last quarter of last year. And together with another agreement they made up about 12% of our energy demand last Year.

Michael Olsen: That’s when the first part came online. And surely that’ll grow because more is coming Online.

Monika Tenerowicz: Yeah. Actually, in the first half of this year, we also had this approach of not waiting due to the situation in the Polish renewables market and the fact that we have to wait for those powers to be developed. We also signed an interim start of an interim agreement covering 2023. So this year, and I think December 2022, or bigger volumes that will allow us to fill in the gap while we wait for other projects to be developed to that approaching, in the first half of this year, we have surpassed our ambition set for 2025, which was at least 60% of renewables within the mix of orange Polska in the first half of this year, we were about 70% reliant on renewables within the mix.

Michael Olsen: You talked about not waiting for that stuff to be built up. What does that mean? That presumes that there was something else present at the time that you grabbed instead, so you wouldn’t have to wait that was renewable, presumably what out of another country?

Monika Tenerowicz: No, we only operate across Poland. We decided to go for powers that were available at this point. Renewable also wind farms. All of the PPA signed by Orange Polska until September of this year were wind powers. In September, we signed our first solar agreement, and this will allow us to balance the share of renewables in the mix throughout the year much better because in Poland in the colder months, it’s much windier, and naturally, summer means sunny months.

Michael Olsen: Well, you know what’s your assessment of the comparative progress in Poland? Of these two renewable sources, wind and sun. Again, you took me by surprise, by the wind, and even by the solar. But it just may be that I haven’t been tracking progress there.

Monika Tenerowicz: Both are developing rapidly. And in terms of solar, there is a very vast personal move. So essentially individual people put photovoltaic installations on their homes, their households, or even smaller businesses because over the past, I think three years, there has been much incentive financially also from the government, and especially local authorities and the EU funds for individual consumers or smaller businesses to go for solar. So we’ve seen a boost on that year, over the past, I think two to three years. Now what we are strongly dependent on and what is still the main challenge is the quality and the state of the infrastructure. So the strategic infrastructure. Yeah. It’s not that new. It needs a lot of investment.

Michael Olsen: Do you mean the electrical grid Especially?

Monika Tenerowicz: Absolutely. The electrical grid needs some specific investment to be able to essentially manage the energy volumes produced from renewables. So mainly spikes during the day.

Michael Olsen: Right, I’d like to get into partnering because you know, reaching out even beyond your sector to partner to further these environmental aims. Now, I presume that the sort of transactions that we’ve discussed so far were not so much partnering rather than just sort of purchasing agreements although indeed it must be true that you were probably the, like the foundational customer, the essential customer that enabled the wind projects to have the financial?

Monika Tenerowicz: It depends, It’s project by project. It depends because overall in Poland, there is much interest in renewables, and it only accelerated last year in 2022. Because essentially a country that’s closest to a territory that is in a state of war. So, Ukraine and Russia, and very strongly before the past let’s say, are still strongly dependent on fossil fuels, that is, that has been maybe okay. That has been imported from Eastern Europe. Something was missing in that equation, which meant that we were going a step back, why we decided on the PP, and why we decided on renewable energy in the first place. Because work began way before the climate strategy, once again, we’re back to efficiency and effectiveness. The decision was made to, of course, limit the emissions, but also to provide some stability in terms of energy pricing and energy supply to dive, to diversify essentially as a business strategy. Only those first two installations that were active in the last quarter of last year provided some savings in the energy budget within 2020. So 12 months rather than 10 months we had a very volatile situation in Poland when it came to the energy market and energy prices. For both businesses and individual customers and individual customers, the government did kind of their work, and froze the prices essentially, which meant that the cost had to go somewhere.

Michael Olsen: This is the timeframe when the war has started. So not so much more energy is available from the east, from traditional sources. Okay. And that hits businesses as well as consumers, and actually, I guess governments will be quicker to consumers, the voters rather than the businesses.

Monika Tenerowicz: The changes in renewables for consumer offers or business offers are also heavily regulated. And those regulations change a lot. And I speak of our own experience because, in Poland, orange has an energy company called Orga Solar Energy. And they provide energy based on guarantees of origin for individual consumers mid and small businesses. Then they also have a photo-type offer and so on.

Michael Olsen: That’s interesting. So you’ve essentially vertically integrated, you incorporated one aspect of your input into your very same company that’s wholly owned by Orange, I presume, Orange. Who owned a subsidiary?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes.

Michael Olsen: Okay. Well, again, so you’ve brought it in-house to get the energy you want to vertically integrate?

Monika Tenerowicz: Well, it’s a subsidiary that serves our customers. They do some work in terms of solar, for example, for our offices, for us. but their key focus is the actual energy market for the consumer or smaller or mid-sized businesses.

Michael Olsen: Okay. Just only a slight wholesale provision to orange?

Monika Tenerowicz: I wouldn’t even call it wholesale. It is just business-to-business relations. Because what they do is they, for example, provide solar installations on one of our headquarters.

Michael Olsen: Okay. And no doubt they also provide energy to what other businesses might need. It’s an energy company that sells energy to consumers and businesses and makes money. Makes money the way that the one condition though it’s owned by Orange, insists that it’d be renewable. I presume.

Monika Tenerowicz: Yet. That’s the direction. It’s still not easy in Poland. However, the company has a new strategy that was launched earlier this year,

Michael Olsen: And we’re talking about Orange and FG.?

Monika Tenerowicz:  Yes

Michael Olsen: What, would that strategy be to the extent we’re allowed to know?

Monika Tenerowicz: That strategy entails a shift not only to green energy on paper, based on guarantees of origin but to actual green energy. So based on power purchase agreements.

Michael Olsen: In other words, a transition to what everyone expects them to do. To get away from fossil fuel energy renewables. 

Monika Tenerowicz: Absolutely, And for many years Orange Polska has been the leading so-called alternative energy provider in Poland. So okay. That’s quite a chunk of our business.

Michael Olsen: Interesting and again, co-branded. So you gain some of the shine, obviously from the good things that it does and the good things that Orange Polskan itself does.

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes. and actually from a major burden, because we were debating whether to include this type of operation because it’s not core telecom business, it differs vastly from what we do day to day. And we discussed how to include ambitions coming from Orange in our climate accounting. The discussion is still ongoing, however, thanks to the efforts made by the guys within Orange over the past year and a half, let’s say from being a burden, they may become an asset. So that’s the direction.

Michael Olsen: And, clearly orange and idea when asked for customers who wanted so much energy rather than say no, sorry, we only have so much because it has to be renewable. They said, we’ll give you what you want, even though part of it can’t be renewable, but we’ll make it, we’ll do the best we can. To make the transition. Yes. Interesting. Well, our research uncovered that he did serve for the city of Warsaw as a press officer and had an extensive background in public relations and that sort of thing. And you know how that has helped you in fashioning the right sort of communication strategies, which might be sort of out of the ordinary to push an extraordinary message of climate danger and the things that society and business need to do to address it effectively?

Monika Tenerowicz: Well, back in public administration, I used to work with topics related to environmental protection and economic development with the city which marries essentially what we do at Orange because, you know, the purpose of every business is to grow. And the question is not whether to do it, but how to do it. And that’s the question that we’re being asked more and more by our customers, both individuals, and businesses. and being with Orange for almost a decade, I think that what is the biggest experience that I can build on and that I can use is just simple knowledge of the company, knowledge of the business.

Michael Olsen: Knowledge of telecommunications built a business and so maybe you, you needed a little bit of time as merely, the head of media relations to learn on the side that additional stuff and to finally become the climate officer.

Monika Tenerowicz: Absolutely, Plus, I have, as mentioned before, I’ve always worked with those topics and they do interest me personally, so it all makes sense.

Michael Olsen: Okay. Again, with the experience on the climate side, even with the city of Warsaw. And then that bringing along, and then learning more about them, the new business that you’ve been plunging, mainly telecoms rather than administration. To develop your skills. And then finally become a legitimate climate officer with both a media background and also from your time with the city, an interest, skills, and knowledge about climate.

Monika Tenerowicz: But the one thing that I think is the strongest assumption that I have in both lines of work is, to tell the truth, and lead by example as a business. Because at Orange, we are a leader in merely business terms. So numbers of customers, volumes of services, and so on and so on. We are the ones. It is our responsibility to also lead by example in all of the other areas that we have to take into consideration and we have to be accountable for we, at Orange, we’ve done many things that are good examples of sustainable transition in terms of telecoms. For example, in Poland we don’t sell the customer premise equipment, so set boxes or modems for the customer. We lease it, We’ll lease those boxes, which means that over 90% of those boxes can come back to us. And once we collect them from the customers just outside of Warsaw, we have a refurbishment line each, for example, model, the latest model that is handed out to the customers by design is ready to be refurbished at least seven times, which means that we don’t have to buy six additional modems to give them to the customer. We can use this one. This is the only facility of this type within the Orange group in Europe. We also work for other countries across the Orange footprint for the refurbishment of customer-premise equipment per year. It’s about half a million devices that go over this refurbish refurbishment line, which is quite a result, I guess.

Michael Olsen: It doesn’t have to be made out of new can be reused in a very efficient way.

Monika Tenerowicz: Yup and they’re just, they’re just as good as new. The newer devices are constructed also in a way that allows us to use the casing or use and essentially exchange any internal components that need to be exchanged. We have the core of the device, and for example, the Wi-Fi module can be replaced. So we can upgrade the device to give better quality to the customer within the same casing and, and the same mainframe, which prevents lifecycle emissions from growing.

Michael Olsen: Exactly. Well, that sounds like one, but one example of a sort of portfolio of best practices for orange Polska, where you’re leading the field among your fellow telecom companies. Can you name some others where you stand out in that sort of same way?

Monika Tenerowicz: Another example, maybe our policy regarding refurbished personal devices. So mainly smartphones. For the past years, we’ve been active in this realm mainly through scattered operations. Last year, we gathered them and created a single re-program. So use reduced recycle repair which is also a major factor.

Michael Olsen: Those, you just can’t give to someone else because they know it’s the old kind that they have a different approach for that.

Monika Tenerowicz: We’re responsible for the devices that we introduce to the market, which means that we have our ambitions set for how many devices we collect from the market to either recycle the materials that are inside a smartphone because it’s to produce one smartphone takes roughly from 40 to 70 kilograms of materials, which is way more than you’d imagine. Right. And thanks to taking them back either refurbishing and reintroducing them to the market, which we do have a refurbished offer, or recycling. We are so using the companies that can be used safely. What else is there that we cannot essentially reuse? We try to limit the impact of digital devices, and personal devices on the environment. So both of those examples are a way of introducing our customers to join us on the path to sustainability and the path to zero emissions. Our global ambition is net zero by 2040.

Michael Olsen: And whose base is on orange Polska itself being net zero or Poland?

Monika Tenerowicz: Orange Polska yes, and it includes all scopes. So the fuel that we burn the energy that we use, and also across the value chain, which is a huge challenge that we are now approaching introducing some solutions as mentioned for the customers, but also a lot of work is done with the vendors with their suppliers which is a major part as an example of an action that also promotes circularity but more oriented towards specific telecoms operations. And finding backhaul operations we also have an internal program within the Orange group with Europe.

Michael Olsen: Yes. Within the pan-European Orange Polska Group Right?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes, that allows us to either resell the network equipment or network components that we don’t need, and that are usable in our state that allows us to do so, or buy refurbished equipment for the network when it is reasonable. So this is another example of this lifecycle approach applied to our corporations.

Michael Olsen: Applied to even your wholesale network equipment which again you join in cooperation with your other orange companies.

Monika Tenerowicz: Yeah, absolutely and you know, this is a big example because you know network equipment makes up a lot of what we do but try to work with every little aspect. For example, we have agreements with technical schools across the country. There are three or four at this point

Monika Tenerowicz: What do they do for you?

Monika Tenerowicz: No, we do stuff for them.

Michael Olsen: You do for them, correct?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes. We provide them with excess fiber optic cables and similar components that we don’t need anymore that are not usable for us. We won’t be using those that are essentially spare when it comes to our operations. But those institutions can hand them to their students. They can learn more practically about the work that they will be doing within the telecom industry. So this is an example of a small action but very meaningful.

Michael Olsen: Surely it sounds like you mentioned how the wider world in Poland, shall we say, only got onto the renewables bandwagon around 2022. You were already 2020, of course, making your initial agreements.

Monika Tenerowicz: It happened before, but 2022 was certainly a boost.

Michael Olsen: And possibly for various cynical, practical reasons in terms of energy supplies being scarce, having to find something different maybe, and why not renewables?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yeah. But, what we did even before starting 2013, I think was saving the energy that we use. So energy optimization is essential with good results because between 2016 and 2022, the end of 2022, we’ve saved over one terawatt hour. So for reference, that’s about the same amount that we, I mean, orange Polska will use up in 2023 and 2022 combined. So it is quite a result, I think. And we use various various measures to do that. For example, run sharing with T-Mobile in Poland.

Michael Olsen: Okay, But what I had in mind was looking to the future, to what extent there is a sustainability movement across all of Poland’s telecom industry, yourself, and your competitors. To what extent the other ones have also, shall we say, see the light have taken a look at postal Orange best practices adapted to some degree to their practices and getting serious about, you know, the climate crisis and various net zero goals even on the nationwide scale trying to achieve them.

Monika Tenerowicz: It’s a direction that generally polished businesses go for not only telecoms but also ICT companies. What is specific to the telecom and general ICT business, as part of our B2B operations, we have an integrator company as well. It’s called integrated services and provides loads of wide-scope ICT services. What we can do is support other industries in their sustainable transition. We have the means to do it. We have the knowledge to do it. And in the case of launching postcards, we also have our own experience that we can share, for example, in terms of energy efficiency. One example of a solution that is very efficient in actually tackling the climate issue and for other industries as well as smart metering sensors, the Internet of Think solutions, and smart cities,

Michael Olsen: Smart metering is being able to read meters without a physical person.

Monika Tenerowicz: Absolutely. It’s an essential component for companies, for example, to track their energy use and manage it more efficiently. Once again, we’re back to the efficiency issue. Because Every that you haven’t used is the most, climate-friendly

Michael Olsen: Okay. But does there exist an industry association of telecoms? Through which you know, through which someone could take the initiative, maybe Orange Polska to voluntarily spread best practices, and try to pull everybody collectively into a more sustainable attitude.

Monika Tenerowicz: Yes. We work together with other telecoms, device suppliers, with vendors within the framework of the Polish Chamber for Telecommunications. We have a dedicated climate and environment committee, and we are working within that entirety on industry standards regarding the climate and environment and fostering awareness basically on the issues that we have to face and the challenges that we have to tackle.

Michael Olsen: And this is all presumably, you know, not necessarily so profitable, but of course, if you don’t have a country anymore or if there’s a climate crisis you don’t have much of a business anyway. So out of sort of the pro bono public service incentives of orange Polska.

Monika Tenerowicz: There’s, that’s very common, I think, misunderstanding because being more sustainable doesn’t mean it’s expensive. It’s like the energy example, right? If you buy conventional energy and then buy origin guarantees of origin on top of that, yes, it’ll be more expensive. But if you decide to go for renewables, essentially the real deal, the price may be better. And this is a simple example to show how I think that the global approach is also changing.

Michael Olsen: Do you mean a little bit global?

Monika Tenerowicz: Yeah, even back two years ago, when we look back two years ago, CFOs were not very keen on sustainability because that’s the first that came to their mind because there was this sort of old school of thinking about ESG. So environmental social governance commitments that they must cost. It has to cost money. But if you do it the right way, and integrate this sustainable logic within your business operations, you won’t have to pay on top. It will be amping up your results and it’ll be boosting your business. Especially in the situation that we have now in Europe where, sustainable issues, let’s call it that way. ESG is gaining more and more traction and we’re in, and we’re about to enter a new era of non-financial reporting that will be accounted for in the same framework as financial reporting. More and more businesses will be paying more and more attention to sustainability requirements because of what you do as their supplier, so what we do as their supplier in terms of ICT will be visible in their reporting, and their track record. This is essentially a business opportunity and not a burden.

Michael Olsen: Exactly. Especially since fortunately solar and wind have broken through a lower barrier and are getting cheaper and cheaper and making more sense on their terms.

Saksham Sharda: So the last question for you is of a personal kind. What would you be doing in your life, if not this?

Monika Tenerowicz: That’s a very good question. I think I would be running a flower shop.

Saksham Sharda: That’s beautiful and sustainable.

Michael Olsen: She Likes gardening.

Monika Tenerowicz: I like gardening. I do. And it’s always kind of I’ve always associated this line of work with peace and tranquility.

Let’s Conclude!

Saksham Sharda: Thanks, everyone for joining us for this month’s episode of Outgrow’s Marketer of the Month. That was Monika Tenerowicz, who is the Climate Officer at Orange Polska.

Monika Tenerowicz: Great to be here. Thank you.

Saksham Sharda: Check out the website for more details and we’ll see you once again next month with another marketer of the month.