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. Liberty Global commits to enhance product accessibility. It is a member of The Valuable 500, a group of companies that have committed to disability inclusion, and offers voice activated products. Liberty Global also discloses its community investments and taxes paid by its subsidiaries.

Liberty Global supports digital literacy by partnering with non-governmental organisations across Europe to deliver a range of initiatives under their Future Makers programme. One example is the partnership between its subsidiary UPC and the magazine Glamour, teaching web design to Swiss girls. The company also supported online learning in the UK through the Help for Home Learners initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Liberty Global meets industry norms in monitoring cybersecurity, as it has a security incident response team and an information security management certificate. The company also demonstrates a commitment to child online protection, and supports this through various initiatives.

Liberty Global supports the tech innovation ecosystem through its venture capital fund and start-up accelerators, which contribute to mentoring and funding across Europe. It also supports social start-ups through its subsidiary UPC’s Think Big programme, which encourages entrepreneurs to use technology to solve societal challenges.

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. It can also disclose how the economic value it generates is distributed among stakeholders.

The company can introduce programmes to support intermediate and technical digital skills development. It can also disclose metrics on its contribution to its Future Makers programme and its Help for Home Learners initiative, and it has the opportunity to carry out third-party impact assessments for both.

Liberty Global should demonstrate high-level commitment to cybersecurity and disclose information on cybersecurity oversight within the company. 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 should also introduce a group-level privacy policy.

Liberty Global should make a high-level commitment to support open source projects and standards and consider 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 should report the number of its women employees in technical 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 right 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 the health and safety of workers, 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 against any other indicators of diversity per employee category.

Liberty Global has a global tax strategy, which is overseen by executive-level individuals. However, while the company discloses its income tax payments in the US, the UK, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, it does not disclose 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 contracts with its business relationships. Furthermore, it has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints.

The below datasheet disaggregates scores within the three core social measurement areas and by specific indicators.