ESG

1. ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION

Establishment of environmental protection-related mechanisms	Yes
Investment in environmental protection during the Reporting Period (Unit: RMB0’000)	249,781.07

Note: the Reporting Period, the investment in environmental protection included two parts: energy conservation investment and environmental protection investment.

(1) Description of environmental protection of the Company other than key pollutant discharging units

The Company and its subsidiaries are not the key pollutant discharging units announced by the environmental protection department. The Company and its subsidiaries earnestly implement the Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environment Pollution Caused by Solid Wastes of the People’s Republic of China, the Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution of the People’s Republic of China, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution of the People’s Republic of China and other environmental protection laws and regulations in their daily production and operation. The production and operation activities are in compliance with the relevant national environmental protection requirements. For details, please refer to the Sustainability Report 2023 of the Company published by the Company on the websites of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (www.hkexnews.hk) and the Company (www.chinatelecom-h.com).

(2) Relevant information conducive to protecting the ecology, preventing and controlling pollution, and fulfilling environmental responsibilities

The Company actively participated in ecosystem protection, created bird recognition algorithms, and assisted in the biodiversity protection and management of the Zhejiang Tiaozini Wetlands. For the ecological protection of the Yangtze River Basin, the Company used digital platform technology to create a biodiversity management system for the natural reserves in Hubei, and advanced the ecological protection of the Yangtze River Basin to an intelligent form of governance. The Company actively promoted the prevention and control of air pollution, used a new generation of digital intelligence technology, formulated air quality prediction and early alert models and built an environmental protection cloud platform to help Hebei, Gansu and other provinces to significantly improve the level of air pollution prevention and control.

(3) Measures taken to reduce carbon emissions during the Reporting Period and their effects

Any carbon reduction measures taken	Yes
Reduction on CO2 equivalent emissions (unit: tonnes)	13 million
Types of carbon reduction measures (e.g. use of clean energy for power generation, use of carbon reduction technologies in the production process, R&D and production of new products that contribute to carbon reduction, etc.)	1. In terms of cloud-network infrastructure construction: the Company promoted the construction and deployment of national green datacentres, new generation of Artificial Intelligence Datacentres (AIDC), ROADM all-fibre network, new metropolitan network comprehensive carrying capacity, Gigabit fibre network and ultra-low loss optical cable network, etc.;
	2. In terms of cloud-network operation: the Company promoted the green upgrading and renovation of the facility rooms, AI energy-saving deployment, minimalist base station transformation and retirement of old equipment;
	3. In terms of clean energy use: the Company continued to increase the proportion of green power use and expand the scale of green power trading and self-built distributed energy facilities;
	4. In terms of green product R&D: the Company created a series of proprietary green and low-carbon products such as e Secure Energy, e Energy Saving, e Extreme Cooling and 5G Integrated Smart Power Supply Cabinet.

For details, please refer to the Sustainability Report 2023 of the Company published by the Company on the websites of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (www.hkexnews.hk) and the Company (www.chinatelecom-h.com).

2. SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

External donation, public welfare projects	Quantity/content
Total investment (RMB0’000)	26,052.70

For details, please refer to the Sustainability Report 2023 of the Company published by the Company on the websites of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (www.hkexnews.hk) and the Company (www.chinatelecom-h.com).

3. CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION OF ACHIEVEMENTS IN POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND PROSPERITY OF RURAL VILLAGES

Poverty Alleviation and Rural Revitalisation Projects	Quantity/Content
Total investment (RMB0’000)	21,153.72
Forms of support (e.g. industrial poverty alleviation, employment poverty alleviation, education poverty alleviation, etc.)	Industrial assistance: China Telecom focused on industrial revitalisation and made use of the characteristic resources in the poverty alleviation counties. The Company assisted in the construction of 10 industrial benchmark projects, including the mushroom and rice prefecture-level agricultural parks in Yanyuan County; the biological fertilizer, canned food processing plant and herbal medicine planting base in Muli County; the edible fungi industrial park in Tianlin County; the 123 industrial integrated development demonstration park in Shufu County; the high-efficiency daylight greenhouse in Bianba County; and the smart farms in Jiuzhi County. The Company has built more than 50,000 smart agricultural projects, leading 42,000 people out of poverty and into prosperity.
	Consumption assistance: China Telecom has always regarded consumption assistance as an important way to promote the quality, efficiency and sustainable development of characteristic industries in poverty alleviation areas. The Company took the lead in holding the China Telecom’s New Consumption Platform Shopping Festival, the central enterprises’ cohesion action on consumption support of the SASAC, carried out more than 120 live broadcasts and more than 500 e-commerce skills training sessions for the consumption assistance programme, and helped farmers open more than 1,300 online stores. Throughout the year, the Company directly purchased agricultural products of RMB185 million and assisted in selling agricultural products of RMB296 million.
	Employment training: Gathering the advantages of training resources such as telecommunication colleges, postal academies, online universities, and external teachers, the Company launched a special zone for online universities for rural revitalisation, recorded 25 high-quality courses, and organised 14 open classes of famous teachers’ lectures, with a total of 21,500 person-times of grass-roots cadres, 8,034 person-times of rural revitalisation leaders and 32,100 person-times of technicians trained. Throughout the year, the Company supported 19 leading enterprises and 22 rural cooperatives, assisted in setting up 6 assistance workshops, and helped 3,186 people to find employment.
	Informatisation assistance: China Telecom gave full play to its corporate advantages and empowered rural revitalisation with informatisation. China Telecom Digital Village services covered more than 360,000 administrative villages and more than 100 million villagers. A total of 27 projects were built under the teaching video cloud platform. The Company provided medical informatised services to 198 counties across the country and the “medical alliances + AI” cloud medical service has been available in more than 2,200 medical institutions.

In 2023, China Telecom learned and applied the experience of the “Ten Million Projects”, gave full play to the advantages of enterprise informatisation capabilities, effectively integrated the poverty assistance resources, and followed the work idea of “1135” rural revitalisation action, i.e. focusing on consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, comprehensively promoting the 1 goal of rural revitalisation, guarding the 1 bottom line of no large-scale return to poverty, highlighting the 3 key points of rural development, rural construction and rural governance, and implementing 5 major projects of technology empowerment, industrial development, consumption assistance, talent training and brand building, to help yield new results in poverty alleviation and reach new heights in rural revitalisation.

China Telecom donated free assistance funds of RMB144 million (including material conversion) to 4 targeted poverty alleviation counties and 2 targeted support counties, invested RMB242 million of paid assistance funds, introduced RMB17.98 million of free assistance funds, and introduced RMB245 million of paid assistance funds; The Company trained 61,700 person-times in the three categories, directly recruited and transferred employment of 3,186 people, and directly purchased and assisted in selling agricultural products of RMB481 million, with all indicators hitting a record high.

At the same time, companies at all levels undertook poverty alleviation tasks in 10 counties, 4 towns and 1,248 villages across the country, and despatched a total of 3,687 full-time and part-time rural revitalisation cadres. Throughout the year, the Company donated free assistance funds of more than RMB250 million, subsidised more than RMB600 million for the 8th and 9th batch of universal service construction costs, completed the construction of more than 4,000 4G base stations and 1,000 5G base stations, and invested more than RMB5 billion in special funds for network construction in the original “three regions and three prefectures” regions. A total of RMB6.5 billion of communication expenses were reduced or exempted in poverty alleviation areas, benefiting 7.89 million households. The digital village services covered more than 360,000 administrative villages and served more than 100 million villagers.

Note: section contains the environmental and social responsibilities work of China Telecommunications Corporation, the Company’s controlling shareholder, in 2023.