ENVIRONMENT
CLIMATE CHANGE
DMAG4-14We are guided by our Environmental Management System (EMS) which supports our commitment towards climate change. Aligned with the ISO 14001 management system, it provides direction on the management of key environmental aspects in the planning, design, construction and operation of our core network.
Singtel adopts the precautionary approach to address our potential environmental impact. For example, our Sustainable Supply Chain Management Framework considered the risks in the geography of our vendors’ operations (see Supply Chain Management). We will also be conducting a Life Cycle Analysis and a climate change adaptation analysis in FY2016.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY MANAGEMENT
To address climate change, we focus on two key areas. Firstly, we look at mitigating our greenhouse gas emissions by improving our energy performance and efficiency. We focus on reducing electricity and fuel use in our business operations which represents 95% of our total carbon emissions.
Secondly, we recognise the importance of building and maintaining a resilient network in the face of climate change. Hence, we are undertaking a detailed climate change adaptation analysis across the Singtel Group in FY2016.
Today, smart technology and services such as cloud computing and audio or video conferencing provide opportunities to reduce emissions for our business and the wider community. We are investing in innovating solutions to reduce our energy and emissions across our network, exchanges, mobile business and office facilities (see story on Supporting a mobile application on energy efficiency).
Energy Performance and Efficiency
The growth in demand for mobile and ICT services has resulted in a corresponding increase in energy consumption to operate our networks. About 90% of Singtel Group’s electricity consumption is associated with our networks (Figure 8.1). Hence it is important that we take active measures to improve our energy efficiency and minimise our dependency on non-renewable energy.
The main areas of energy use within our Group include network infrastructure (telephone exchanges, base stations, mobile access network and satellite earth stations), data centres, office buildings and retail stores. Our group’s total energy use and energy intensity in FY2015 were 2.87 million GJ and 167 GJ/S$ million revenue respectively.
Figure 8.1: Distribution of electricity use
Mobile refers to base stations and mobile access network
Corporate refers to offices, centres and retail stores