Liberty Global

Liberty Global supports access to technology through its Belgian subsidiary Telenet’s Essential Internet programme. The programme provides a discounted internet package to people from low-income backgrounds. The company’s Swiss subsidiary has a similar service aimed at families in need. Further, Liberty Global commits to enhance product accessibility. It is a member of The Valuable 500, a group of companies that have committed to support disability inclusion, and offers voice-activated products. Liberty Global also discloses its community investments and taxes paid by its subsidiaries.

Liberty Global supports basic digital skills development through the Future Makers initiative, for which it has partnered with non-governmental and other organisations across Europe. One example is the partnership between its subsidiary UPC and the magazine Glamour, teaching web design to Swiss girls. In the UK, the company’s subsidiary Virgin Media distributes laptops to schoolchildren featuring a dongle using which they can instantly access teacher support, educational content, and online classes.

Liberty Global discloses lines of responsibility for managing information security in the company. The company also demonstrates support for child online safety and contributes to this through various initiatives.

Liberty Global supports the tech innovation ecosystem through its venture capital fund and start-up accelerators. It also supports social start-ups through its subsidiary UPC’s Think Big programme, which encourages entrepreneurs to use technology to solve societal challenges. The company has a commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and uses them as a framework for measuring progress. Further, it discloses its greenhouse gas emissions and develops innovative initiatives to reduce its environmental impact, such as set-top boxes and modems that consume less power.

Liberty Global has an opportunity to contribute to digital opportunities for women and girls. The company can also disclose the number of its employees with disabilities and the initiatives it undertakes to ensure an inclusive workplace. Additionally, it can disclose how the economic value it generates is distributed among stakeholders as well as its employment in its markets of operation.

The company can support initiatives for intermediate and technical digital skills development. It can also disclose metrics on its contribution to its existing initiatives as well consider third-party impact assessments.

Liberty Global can demonstrate a high-level commitment to cybersecurity. The company has an opportunity to increase transparency by making its information security management certificate publicly available and by clearly reporting its number of data breaches. The company can also consider introducing a group privacy policy.

Liberty Global can consider making a high-level commitment to support open-source projects and standards and collaborating with universities on such projects as well as sustainability research. The company has an opportunity to support entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. To enhance inclusivity and ethics, the company can report the number of its women employees in tech roles and outline how it incorporates ethical considerations in its research and development (R&D) and artificial intelligence (AI) activities.

Liberty Global commits to respecting human rights. It does not commit to respecting all the labour fundamentals outlined in the ILO core labour rights, including the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. However, the company does expect its business relationships to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. The company has identified human rights risks in its business relationships using a risk assessment. Nevertheless, it does not disclose a process to assess and address the salient human rights risks associated with its own operations and with its business relationships. However, Liberty Global does have a grievance mechanism for all stakeholders to raise human rights complaints.

Liberty Global publicly commits to respecting worker health and safety, and it places health and safety expectations on its business relationships and monitors their performance. The company discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. However, it lacks transparency in relation to working hours and living wages for its workers. For example, the company does not specify that workers are not required to work more than regular and overtime hours. Furthermore, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by age and gender. But it does not disclose employee figures against any other indicators of diversity.

Liberty Global has a global tax strategy overseen by executive-level individuals. However, while the company discloses its income tax payments in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK and the US, it does not disclose its income tax payments for all of its tax jurisdictions. The company also does not publicly disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement. However, it does state that it does not make political contributions. Liberty Global has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts. Furthermore, it has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints on the topic.