V6 TV box scorecard results

Ten times the oomph on half the electricity


Today we’ve announced one of the UK’s largest customer upgrade programmes, offering millions of Virgin TV customers a free upgrade to our latest V6 box.


With 10 times more power than its predecessor, and half the size, this is fantastic news for Virgin Media customers. But alongside its incredible features, we’re pleased to shine a light on the V6 box’s strong sustainability credentials.


Back in 2015 we committed to making every new customer product more sustainable than the last. To deliver this promise we developed our Product Scorecard which enables us to measure and communicate how we’re reducing the environmental and social impacts of every product.


In July 2017 we published our Scorecard methodology as well as the results from putting the Hub 3.0, our latest broadband box, to the test. These results act as the benchmark for all future broadband boxes. Find out more here.


V6 box Product Scorecard Results:


In addition to being our smallest, smartest and fastest box ever, using the product scorecard we also know that:

• Using a typical user scenario the V6 box uses less than half the power across a 24 hour period compared to the old TiVo due to its eco low power modes. Across the customer base this is already saving enough energy to power over 7,000 UK homes a year
• It uses 21% less materials, like plastics, metals and electronics, by weight
• It uses 50% less packaging when in distribution from our suppliers to our Big Red Shed

The product scorecard isn’t just about measuring the impact of our products. We’re also using it to influence the design and development of future products by working with Liberty Global at the earliest stages of product development, as well as asking our suppliers to demonstrate how they can improve the sustainability impacts of future products.


The end of life impacts of our products are just as important to us, which is why we are using the V6 box upgrade as an opportunity to clarify our approach to recycling old equipment.


Where possible we repair and reuse as much old customer equipment as we can – since 2014 we’ve reused over 4.6 million items.


Unfortunately not everything can be reused; either because we already have the volumes we need to meet demand or the product has been replaced by a new model. In these cases we work with our waste partners across the UK to dispose of each item responsibly and have worked with waste experts WRAP to launch a new tool for customers to locate their nearest electrical waste recycling centre.


Full advice for customers on what to do with old kit can be found here.