This week, my focus has been on co-ordinating Telstra’s contribution to Earth Hour 2011 as we switch off the lights and building signage in over 400 different sites around Australia and internationally. This includes office buildings, Exchanges and Telstra stores and for the first time will also include some of Telstra’s international locations.

This year the focus of Earth Hour is committing beyond the hour.  It’s about considering what we as individuals and companies can do to extend our commitment to saving the planet beyond switching off our lights this Saturday.

Some of the organisations that inspire me to ‘go beyond the hour’ in terms of their environmental commitment include:

• St James Ethics Centre which works tirelessly to promote sustainable business practices within Australia, and
• Technology companies such as Energy Intellect which provide Telstra with innovative tools to better manage our energy consumption.

As National Energy Manager for Telstra’s Property area I am responsible for looking at opportunities to reduce the energy consumption of Telstra sites around Australia. In 2009/10, Telstra reduced the power consumption of our buildings by 33,016 GJ which saved 10,323 tonnes CO2. The challenge for us as a company is to minimise our own carbon footprint while still meeting our customer’s increasing demand for energy-intensive technology.

There are a number of ways that my team will contribute to Telstra’s commitment to reduce our environmental footprint beyond Earth Hour in the year ahead.  We will be implementing a national reporting platform that will give us a better understanding of the opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of our property portfolio.

We are also undertaking major office refurbishment projects in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.  These projects implement our national accommodation standards that focus on better space utilisation to reduce our office footprint; implement new waste management policies to increase recycling and look at opportunities to reduce our energy usage by upgrading base building infrastructure such as air conditioning.

Good luck to everyone who is participating in Earth Hour this year.  It’s really important that we keep supporting great initiatives like this that put sustainability issues on the world stage.

Related links

• Earth Hour 2011 – you can also sign up to pledge your commitment to Earth Hour on this site.
• This Earth Hour, go beyond the hour
• Telstra Corporate Citizenship