The twisted tale of Telstra's carbon reduction plans

Stuart Corner
Monday, 16 November 2009 05:50

IT Industry - Strategy

Telstra has unveiled a plan setting out how it intends to reduce its carbon footprint over the next six years, but the reported, and impossible, target of 10 percent for every dollar earned is not part of it.

CEO David Thodey has announced a targeted reduction of 10 percent by 2015 in "carbon emissions intensity" - a term that, Telstra explains, refers to "the amount of carbon emitted for every dollar earned." However it actually refers to revenue, not profit.

According to Telstra's press release "In 2008/09 Telstra emitted 1.52 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, or 64 tonnes per million dollars of domestic revenue. The target requires Telstra to reduce this to at least 58 tonnes per million dollars of domestic revenue by 2015."

In other words, if Telstra's domestic revenue were to rise by 10 percent by 2015 (with no adjustment for inflation) Telstra would not have to achieve any net reduction in carbon emissions to meet its target.

This concept confused at least one news outlet, which happily reported that "Telstra has revealed plans to reduce its carbon emissions by 10 percent for every dollar earned over the next six years."

Thodey said the target was ambitious because it took into account the additional energy required to meet exponential growth in network and data storage capacity. And, to be fair, this growth is unlikely to produce a proportionate growth in revenues.

Thodey said: "Traffic on Telstra's Next G wireless broadband network is doubling every eight months while traffic on the Next IP network is doubling every 20 months. This means Telstra has to manage its environmental footprint at the same time as meeting our customers' rapidly expanding demand for energy-intensive technology like data capacity and network storage."

Steps Telstra plans to take to reduce its carbon footprint include:
- Investing in energy efficient projects and accommodation;
- Undertaking specific energy saving projects in existing facilities, and decommissioning redundant network assets;
- Reducing the energy intensity of purchased products and services;
- Implementing staff training to reduce office and vehicle fleet emissions; and
- Adopting low carbon information and communications technologies (ICT) solutions such as videoconferencing and teleworking.

Thodey announced the plan at the launch of Telstra's 2008/09 Corporate Responsibility Repor t in Sydney.