It’s that time of year when we are pulling together our annual sustainability report – a transparent summary of our activities, performance and challenges for last year.

A task which can make some corporate responsibility professionals groan when faced with the prospect of collecting and assuring data to accompany a roundup of the year’s activities, views from stakeholders and adhering to global reporting guidelines.  But not me.  I’m enjoying it this year.

For a start, we’ve a lot to talk about from Telefónica UK.  I have an abundance of stories, experience, lessons learnt and achievements.  And we’re really proud of what we’ve done so are keen to share it with the world through our sustainability report.

This is partially due to our Think Big Blueprint launched last year.  It really helped to join the dots and brought together the different parts of our sustainability programme into one coherent, clear plan.  This provides us with a great narrative, but also a sense of how we are doing and what we need to do more/ better.

We’ve already made great progress towards our three ambitious goals, made up by 40 commitments.  One of the significant achievements last year, in line with our belief in the value of digital skills to help economic recovery, our support for young people, and the abundance of digital skills amongst young people, was the launch of GoThinkBig.

GoThinkBig is a platform to help young people find work and life skills opportunities and jobs, advice and inspiration for starting their career.  Open to other employers to list opportunities they offer – including work experience, taster sessions, entry level jobs, internships and apprenticeships.  It responds to feedback from job-hunting young people of the vicious circle of ‘no experience = no job = no experience’.

Inspired by GoThinkBig, we had an idea.  Offer some short term paid internships, open to young people with great potential but possibly lacking in experience, to produce our sustainability report.  Really putting our money where our mouth is.  And we don’t mean to come along and shadow us, or support producing our report.  No – we want them to lead on it.

Obviously, we’re providing support and guidance – the purpose of the internship is to increase the employability of young people looking to get on in their career.  We’ve got Lambie Nairn, a leading brand agency based in London, to help mentor and guide, and also offer the experience of working in a studio in an agency environment.

The posts are currently being advertised here and here – with a short turn around time (so apply quickly if interested).  We’re looking for a digital designer and user interface developer.

If you know any young people who are looking to develop their skills or boost their CV, please point them towards GoThinkBig as a place to find opportunities.  Where the opportunities listed do not demand years of experience.  Where we are looking for potential, as well as knowledge and skill.

And if you don’t know anyone – just sit back and wait for the report.  We hope to all be impressed.

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