We are committed to managing our environmental impacts and helping our customers and communities to do the same.
We accept our responsibility to help facilitate low-carbon growth, to minimise our emissions, and to improve community resilience to a changing climate. Our efforts to innovate and leverage technology are helping our business, our customers and our communities to respond to climate change. Technology is an essential enabler of low-carbon economic growth, and our investment in technological innovation is helping us to prepare for a more energy-focused, climate conscious future.
Our Environment Strategy commits us to mitigating our climate change impacts and helping our customers and communities to do the same. Our efforts to improve energy and emissions performance covers our operations and broader value chain. We’ve invested $4.7 million in improving the energy efficiency of our facilities, as well as developed a cloud calculator tool to assist customers reduce their carbon emissions through the use of cloud technology. These are just some of the reasons why we were recognised by CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) on the 2018 Climate A-list as one of only three Australian companies to receive an A-rating.
We are also committed to improving the efficiency of the way we manage our resources. E-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste in the world. For example, there are now around 25 million unused mobile phones sitting on shelves or in drawers across Australia. As Australia’s leading telecommunications company, we have a responsibility to improve our resource efficiency and help our customers and suppliers minimise their environmental impacts.
We continue to implement opportunities to reduce resources and support the reuse or recycling of electronic products. Resource efficiency creates opportunity, including innovative products with enhanced sustainability credentials, new revenue streams from reused materials, and cost savings from reduced packaging materials.
We advocate for better product stewardship across our industry and offer programs, such as Telstra eCycle device take back, to help our customers improve their environmental performance. We also work to ensure we comply with our environmental obligations, monitoring and managing the increasing complexity of our environmental risks. In terms of operational efficiency, this year we achieved a 40 per cent reduction in our carbon emissions intensity and collected 15.5 tonnes of customer mobile phones and accessories for recycling.
For more information on how we are bringing our Environment Stratgey to life, and our specific performance targets, please visit our website.
For a detailed overview of our approach and performance in relation to this pillar of our strategy and related material topics, please see the Environmental solutions chapter of our Bigger Picture 2019 Sustainability Report.
