Letter of the Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Annual Report of Polsat Plus Group for the year 2021 is being released in extraordinary circumstances of the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, which is not without impact on political, economic and social life in Poland and around the world, as well as on our company and our immediate environment. Following the coronavirus pandemic, this was yet another experience that required us to take immediate, unconventional and, at the same time, solidarity-based actions. Since the first days we have been supporting Ukrainian citizens by distributing starters at border crossings, providing free telecommunication services, distributing Ukrainian TV channels or providing in-kind and financial assistance. As always, employees of our Group opened their hearts to the needs of others - many of them help personally and in the headquarters of their companies they collect the most needed food, chemical and medical products, which are then delivered to those in need. In turn, the companies of our Group donated PLN 5 million to the "Polsat Foundation for Children of Ukraine" campaign, which anyone can support financially or in-kind. Thanks to the courage and commitment of Telewizja Polsat reporters who are in Ukraine we can follow the events on the ground along with all the Poles, and our news channels Polsat News and Wydarzenia 24 present this subject matter 24 hours a day.
I wish to thank each and every one for your attitude full of empathy, professionalism, solidarity, dedication and help - I am proud to work with such a team. Once again, we prove what a cohesive and committed team we are and that we are not indifferent to the fate of others. The current events once again emphasize the importance of corporate social responsibility and confirm our conviction that activities of this nature, which we have been undertaking as a Group for nearly 30 years, are absolutely right.
Beside our immediate commitment to help the citizens of Ukraine, we consistently pursue our plans, and last year was yet again a time of many challenges, strategic changes and decisions for us.
As promised and in execution of our assumption to achieve further, long-term development of our Group, in December last year we announced the new Strategy 2023+, as part of which we added a third segment - Clean Energy - to the two main business pillars of our Group - Connectivity under the Plus brand and Content under the Polsat brand. We want to provide Poles with cheap and clean, green energy, which is essential for everyday life and which, alongside telecommunication and media services, is a basic service in every household.
We have created a stable and financially strong Polish media and telecommunication group, effectively building its value for our Shareholders. At the same time, we know that Poland faces a huge challenge of energy transition. We still generate about 70% of our energy from coal and emit the equivalent of 400 million tons of CO2 annually, which entails heavy social costs, such as respiratory diseases, strokes, heart attacks, allergies, absenteeism from work and school, and shorter life spans.
We believe that the energy transition is necessary, and even essential for us as a society, to breathe clean air and live in a better environment. We need cheap and clean energy as part of a balanced energy mix for our families and in order to build the competitiveness of our companies. Our Group wants to contribute to that. We want to supply cheap and clean energy - from the sun, wind or biomass. Today more than 60% of energy used by Polsat Plus Group companies comes from renewable sources and next year it will already be 100%.
Another new area we plan to expand into is green hydrogen production. As a Group, we want to change the world, and Europe and the world are turning their attention to green hydrogen. As the fuel of the future, it will play an important role in the global energy transition. Green hydrogen can be used in many branches of the economy, which will accelerate the reduction of emissions of CO2 and other harmful substances. Polsat Plus Group wants to build a full value chain for green hydrogen: from production in the electrolysis process from clean energy and water, through storage and transport, building a network of hydrogen filling stations, production of buses, to its widespread use in Poland. The fleet of Polsat Plus Group has already grown by one hundred zero-emission hydrogen cars.
As the leader of 5G technology, we do not stop in our efforts to make it available to as many Poles as possible. Today 5G in Plus network reaches over 19 million inhabitants of our country and we continue building our best and fastest 5G network. 5G technology will be of great importance for all the inhabitants of Poland in the future. It will strongly support the development of economy 4.0, cybersecurity, electronic payments or cloud and big data solutions, which will allow our country to enter the next stage of digital and civilization development. This is currently a priority for us. As a leader in cutting-edge technologies we are responsible for the digital development of our country, the quality of education, providing society and businesses with reliable tools to, respectively, work remotely and develop their operations online.
On behalf of the Supervisory Board of Cyfrowy Polsat I would like to thank our Customers for another year together, for their loyalty and trust in our services and products that we create with them in mind, and for motivating us to introduce further innovations. I would like to thank the Management Boards and Supervisory Boards, under whose leadership we finalized the next significant milestones in the development of our Group. I would like to extend my special appreciation to all the Group's employees, who once again prove that thanks to their commitment, hard work, high motivation and efficiency, all projects and tasks are successfully completed and our Group remains a leader.
I would like to thank investors for their trust and willingness to continue to participate with me as Shareholders in building the future of Polsat Plus Group. I stand by my declaration that I will act with equal commitment and care for the value of the Group for all its stakeholders, as I have been doing for the past 30 years.
Yours faithfully,
Zygmunt Solorz
Chairman of the Supervisory Board