There has never been a more important time for business to think deeply about the role it plays in society. Events including the 2019-20 Australian Bushfires have raised awareness and increased concern in the community about what climate change means and, more importantly, what must be done to respond and increase resilience. The science is clear. Climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is creating risks that impact our economy, our environment, our communities and each of us individually.
As Australia’s largest telecommunications provider and one of the largest consumers of electrical and other energy in the country, it is essential that we identify and manage the risks and harness the opportunities that climate change presents for our business.
We have long focused on ensuring our networks are energy efficient, and this year we announced a significant step forward in our climate response. We met our first goal, to become carbon neutral in our operations, in July 2020 and are now working towards enabling renewable energy generation equivalent to 100 per cent of our consumption by 2025, and reducing our absolute emissions by 50 per cent by 2030. This year we also met our FY18-20 carbon intensity target, reducing our intensity (tC02-e per petabyte) by 55 per cent, based on a baseline year of FY17.
We are also committed to improving resource efficiency across our operations. We continue to reduce waste and increase the reuse and recycling of materials. Resource efficiency creates opportunity for us to innovate, and this year we have focused on redesigning our customer packaging to incorporate sustainable design principles. Noting that e-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste in the world, we have also explored ways to increase e-waste recycling of both our customer devices and our network equipment. This year we collected 3,923 tonnes of e-waste for recycling.
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 2020 Sustainability Report.
