Telstra is one of the largest consumers of power in the country.
Telstra: Carbon Neutral From This Year
By Andrew Penn, CEO – Telstra
Telstra is one of the largest consumers of power in the country. Powering networks to cover a continent this big so that millions of Australians stay connected requires something in the order of 5.9 petajoules of energy each year and last year that resulted in nearly 1.3m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
As businesses, governments, communities and all of us as individuals increasingly adapt and adopt new digital technologies, the volume of data on our network grew by 26 per cent last year alone and is expected to triple by 2025.
The good news is many of the digital initiatives that sit behind this massive increase in the consumption of data are having their own positive impact on the environment. Sensors deployed in their millions are creating previously undreamt-of efficiencies through smart cities with connected wheelie bins and traffic lights, smart manufacturing with connected robots and tooling and even smart agriculture with connected farm gates and farm animals.
These all have the potential to achieve major environmentally positive efficiencies but, at the same time, they also drive more data requirements over the internet thereby increasing the energy needed to power telecommunication networks.
We have been working hard to ensure that this does not lead to an increase in our greenhouse gas emissions and we are on track to meet our target to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions intensity in the three years to June 2020 by 50 per cent.
However, I believe we need to do even more.
