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Telstra launches sustainability whitepaper via videoconference

Tony Chan | April 24, 2009 | 0 Comments

By Petroc Wiltom, Communications Day

Telstra is aiming to lead by example on environmental sustainability, joining with the World Wildlife Fund Australia to launch a whitepaper on the subject via videoconference across five cities.

Participants in the conference included Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong, who welcomed the paper’s objectives: to highlight how ICT can improve organisations’ green credentials while providing tools to help them quantify the environmental and financial benefits.

The ROI tools, developed by Telstra and Capgemini, are aimed at allowing organisations to estimate emissions reductions and productivity improvements from the use of videoconferencing, teleworking strategies, virtual contact centres and new fleet and field force management solutions. “We spent a lot of time developing these RoI tools so that, if you look at different parts of your business, you could really see the commercial outcomes,” said Telstra enterprise and government GMD David Thodey.

“When we talk to corporations, we can say that this isn’t just an idea, but something they can take through every part of the company; there’s value here for the economy as well as for the environment.”

Thodey was quick to emphasise that Telstra itself was actively reducing its carbon footprint via the same strategies. He cited travel expenditure reductions of 25% within his own department thanks to increased use of videoconferencing and 8% fuel savings arising from dynamic deployment of Telstra’s fleet and field force, made possible by the use of GPS and wireless connectivity. “When you talk about these areas, you need to be able to have a proof statement… so we spent a lot of time ourselves thinking about how we can redeploy carbon decreasing initiatives,” he said.

“The tools Telstra have developed… [are] really important for business now, and also into the future,” said Wong. “And [the paper] reflects the importance the government attaches to the passage of the carbon reduction scheme, and putting a price on carbon – because it enables and assists businesses to become more sustainable.”

“Most people think that sustainability and climate change is just [a matter] for the big pollution industries… the information and telecommunications industries have a really big part to play,” added WWF Australia CEO Greg Bourne. “We have to be on the front foot; it’s good to see Telstra leading on this.”

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