As part of the broader information and communications technology (ICT) industry, Telstra plays an important role in enabling the more efficient use of raw materials, transportation and energy across the economy and society.
We believe that we have an important role to play by undertaking good care of the environment.
We know our environmental management can directly influence our business performance and provide a range of productivity benefits across a range of areas. By reducing the environmental impact of our operations, we provide better value for our shareholders, reduce ongoing costs, efficiently use precious resources and initiate programs that benefit the wider community.
Over 2006-07 we reduced our energy consumption, recycled waste, reduced office paper consumption, recycled water, planted trees and operated solar powered sites.
Telstra complies with all energy and water legislation, including the Energy Efficiency Opportunity Act (2006), the NSW Energy Saving Action Plans (2005) and the Queensland Water Efficiency Management Plans.Telstra also has an Environment Policy, the purpose of which is to integrate environmental management into our everyday operations
For specific information on our environmental performance, visit Our Stories or the Corporate Social Responsibility report. Telstra has also commissioned a High-Bandwidth, Low-Carbon report prepared by climate change experts.
Telstra's Environment Policy
Telstra’s operations, employees and products and services touch all Australians. This provides us with a unique opportunity to support the environment in which our customers live and work. Our customers drive our business and we recognise that our customers want us to demonstrate the highest standards of environmental management and practice. We will deliver what our customers want.
Telstra will:
- Comply with all relevant environmental laws;
- Continue to improve our environmental management system and performance;
- Be responsive to the environmental concerns of our customers and the communities in which we operate;
- Build environmental awareness amongst our staff;
- Investigate and implement, where appropriate, programs to improve the efficiency of our resource consumption;
- Implement programs that minimise waste generation in our internal processes and through the lifecycle of our products;
- Investigate and implement mutually beneficial programs of environmental management with governments and external stakeholders;
- Constructively work with our contractors and suppliers to ensure that they establish and maintain appropriate environmental standards; and
- Monitor and report our environmental progress.
Emissions
The impact of Telstra's energy management programs is considerable. We are one of the largest owners and operators of commercial properties, we have the largest automotive fleet of its kind and we are the largest private operator of solar panels in Australia. We can have a significant positive impact by facilitating greater energy efficiency across our business, supply chain and customer base.
During 2006-07 we saved over 43,900 gigajoules (GJ) of energy through our energy management programs – an amount equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 1,425 Australian homes every year. Initiatives from previous years, such as efficient lighting and air-conditioning systems, continue to deliver savings. The total savings during 2006-07, due to the cumulative effects of previous years' actions, is 135,172 tonnes CO2 equivalent.
This provides a total saving of 173,998 tonnes CO2 equivalent during 2006-07, which is equivalent to the greenhouse emissions from around 18,655 average Australian homes for a year.
We are Australia's biggest user of solar energy, operating 10,693 solar powered sites including exchanges, radio terminals, mobile base stations, satellite communications, remote payphones and also remote home and business phones.
Transport
This year we continued to purchase LPG and diesel vehicles as a means of increasing the fuel efficiency of our fleet. The number of LPG fleet vehicles increased to 2,122, up from 1,174 last year, and 273 diesel vans were purchased. We calculated that our LPG vehicles saved 1,833 tonnes of CO2 emissions and the diesel vehicles saved 1,434 tonnes CO2 over the year – together this equates to a carbon offset equivalent to taking 700 average cars off the road for one year.
We continued our partnership with Greenfleet, a not-for-profit organisation that plants trees to offset vehicle emissions. As part of our package for employees, a payment is made to Greenfleet for each salary packaged vehicle, which is used to plant trees to offset the carbon emissions of those vehicles. This was introduced in 2003 and by 1 July 2005, all salary sacrifice vehicles were covered by this program.
During 2006/07, Greenfleet planted 180,567 trees on our behalf, offsetting 48,391 tonnes CO2 equivalent – enough to fill the MCG 89 times over. This more than doubled from 2005/06 when Greenfleet planted 89,254 trees on our behalf.
GPS in technicians' vehicles that link into Telstra’s job dispatching system is one part of a suite of new tools provided to our technicians. This led to a gain in productivity of 13.3%, and a 5.6% reduction in kilometres travelled per job, hence fuel used.
Telstra commenced the development of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models to quantitatively demonstrate the environmental benefits of Telstra products and services, such as reduced travel. The first LCA's were for teleworking (working at home or away from the office), online billing and a Telstra retail shop. These were undertaken to determine the net environmental benefit of our products in a scientific and rigorous way.
The teleworking analysis revealed:
- teleworking saved an average of 242kgs of carbon emissions per employee, equivalent to taking six cars off the road per 50 employees that teleworked;
- carbon emissions savings benefits from teleworking increase exponentially as employees’ car commute distances increase; and
- a reduction in office space of 75% of the teleworking population, reduced the carbon emissions per employee by 1,200kgs – a reduction of almost 500%.
Recycling
We are an active supporter of recycling, including the mobile phone industry's recycling program – MobileMuster.
During 2006-07 we recycled 65 per cent of our solid and liquid waste, an increase from 47 per cent in 2005-06.
Through our support of Cartridges 4 Planet Ark, in 2006-07 we also collected printer cartridges for recycling, allowing the company to divert 18 tonnes of used cartridges from landfill. This is compared to 15 tonnes in 2005-06, a 20% increase.
Waste
We have developed a National Waste Management System (NWMS) to manage most of our waste services, including the collection, transportation and processing of general waste, recyclable items, liquid waste and any hazardous wastes.
The NWMS includes most types of waste generated from offices, field operations and customer premises.
The volume of our total waste to landfill continues to decrease. This year, the volume of our total waste for disposal (general and special) to landfill decreased from 32,822 tonnes in 2005-06 to 17,527 tonnes in 2006-07. This decrease is primarily due to less water (from our pits) being sent to treatment facilities.
Additionally, the waste diverted from landfill through recycling has resulted in a savings of 22,377 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalent) during 2006-07 - up from 20,122 in 2005-06.
Water
Our corporate responsibility policy requires that any new property must have water-saving devices in place or else a plan to introduce more water efficient methods or technologies in a timely manner.
This year actions to reduce water consumption were extended to include the installation of waterless urinals, flow restriction devices on taps, advanced filtration and servicing of leaking taps. During 2006-07 water saving actions saved an estimated total of 87.3 million litres of water across our office building and network sites.
Telstra's Preserving a Special Resource, a national water conservation project, was a finalist in the Banksia 2007 Water Award which rewards outstanding achievement in protecting, conserving or enhancing Australia's water resources including freshwater and marine environments. This project will save 80 million litres of water per year – the equivalent of 32 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Additional water-saving initiatives at Telstra sites have included:
- flush automation controls in urinals that regulate flushing based on occupancy, for sites not suitable for waterless urinals
- replacement of single flush cisterns with dual flush cisterns
- ‘Toilet Tummies' inserted in cisterns which reduce the volume of water flushed by two litres of water per flush
- advanced water filtration systems on air-conditioning cooling towers to filter and reuse water.
If you have a general query about Telstra environmental performance and initiatives please email us.
