Climate Change and Environment

We remain committed to conducting business responsibly and reducing our environmental impact to generate long term value for our stakeholders. This is supported by our 4D environmental sustainability strategy, which articulates the four approaches to climate action that we take: Defend, Decarbonise, Dematerialise and Deliver. This strategy builds on our achievements and guides our efforts towards reaching net-zero.

We have identified three enablers to operationalise our strategy: equip and engage, finance for sustainability, and policies and guidelines.

• We introduced a financial aspect of sustainability to drive actions backed by financial metrics and data, such as ICP and sustainable financing.
• We are reassessing our policies and guidelines to facilitate decision-making processes in favour of more sustainable choices.
• We take a whole-of-organisation approach to engage and transform our culture to embrace sustainability. We want to equip our people with relevant green skills in their respective functions and engage them to embrace and live sustainably.

SBTi

The Singtel Group became the first company in Asia excluding Japan to have our carbon reduction targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in October 2017. SBTi, a collaborative effort among CDP, WRI, WWF and the United Nations Global Compact, aims to assist businesses to align with the Paris COP21 climate deal to keep global warming well below 2°C.

In December 2023, we revalidated our SBTi targets, making Singtel Group the first telecommunications company in Asia to have GHG emissions targets revalidated by SBTi. We commit to further reduce Singtel Group’s absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 55% by 2030 from a FY2023 base year. We also commit to reduce absolute scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services, capital goods, use of sold products, downstream leased assets and investments by 40% within the same timeframe.

The SBTi Target Validation Team confirmed that our accelerated 2045 net-zero goal is closely aligned with SBTi’s most ambitious scenario of 1.5°C warming. Singtel is the only Asian telecommunications company with a net-zero target ahead of 2050.

Internal Carbon Pricing

We use shadow pricing, a type of Internal Carbon Price (ICP), to attach a hypothetical cost to GHG emissions to guide business decision on capital expenditure and purchase. ICP promotes behaviour change and prepares the business for potential climate-related transitions. From July 2023, business units are required to factor ICP, in the form of internal carbon fees, into emissions-intensive expenditure. The fee, which we termed emissions weighted average cost of carbon (e-WACC), aims to help our business and vendors illuminate the long-term costs of emissions in their business case to incentivise business units to adopt greener and more sustainable choices. This is a major step towards achieving our goal to become more resilient to regulatory climate policies and our commitment to emission reductions.

TCFD

We were one of the first companies globally to endorse the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework in June 2017. We completed our first full TCFD climate scenario analysis for both physical and transition risks in Singapore and Australia and published the Group’s inaugural standalone TCFD Report 2022.

We have structured our climate-related risks and opportunities, and management approach in accordance with the TCFD framework, which aims to help financial institutions and investors understand the financial implications of climate risks on businesses. Our TCFD Report also provides stakeholders with a comprehensive view of Singtel Group’s risk assessment and climate strategy.

We align our climate change and environment approach with our Group purpose. We want to empower the present generation to accelerate climate action and safeguard the planet to chart a sustainable future for generations to come. We are committed to minimising our environmental footprint in our business operations and value chain, as well as meeting our GHG reduction targets, while building resilient networks and supporting communities to deliver long-term value to our business and stakeholders. For more details on our commitments and actions, please refer to our climate statement.

Defending our assets

We defend our assets by mitigating climate-related risks through better design and infrastructure adaptation. We want to safeguard our assets like buildings and networks to ensure minimal disruption to our operations from the physical effects of climate-related disasters. We do this in two ways: future-proofing our assets and increasing our network resilience.

Future-proofing our assets

We build or renovate our buildings and exchanges to cater to business needs and improve building performance. We strive to improve the sustainability performance of all our projects through initiatives such as designing with power usage effectiveness in mind, as well as certifying new buildings to Green Mark Platinum or equivalent standards.

Increasing network resilience

High quality, reliable telecommunications networks in Singapore and Australia remain a key focus. Climate hazards and their potential operational and financial impact on our networks and sites have been identified and incorporated into our climate adaptation strategy. We look to improve climate resilience in four aspects: design, operations, response and collaborations. 

Decarbonising our operations

Our Singtel Group decarbonisation hierarchy guides our reduction efforts. Our options and priorities for decarbonisation are summarised below. 

We have also developed our decarbonisation strategy for each scope of GHG emissions using various levers.

Scope 1 and 2 reduction plans are in accordance with Singtel’s decarbonisation hierarchy with four levers: replace and electrify; decommission and consolidate; optimise and upgrade; and transit to renewables. For scope 3, we focus on sustainable procurement, regional associates management and sustainable business innovation.

Our GHG emissions inventory 

We aim to dematerialise our business by promoting circularity and managing our resources more sustainably when it comes to electronic waste and packaging.

We strive to increase used mobile phone recovery from our consumers and stop devices from being incinerated or disposed of in landfills. We aim to retrieve at least 20% of the number of new mobile devices distributed directly to customers through our various take-back and e-waste recycling schemes by 2030.

Optus has three ambitious targets to achieve by 2025: (1) 100% recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging; (2) 90% waste diversion from landfill; and (3) reusing and recycling over 90% of our e-waste.

E-waste

We are committed to refining our e-waste management process, ensuring that we comply with regulations, improve operational processes and advocate responsible e-waste disposal.

As a retailer under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, we offer a one-for-one takeback service for our Singtel branded products under the ICT category for proper disposal at no cost, upon product delivery to customers. We recycle damaged CPE devices collected back from customer such as modems and set-top boxes. We also refine our existing e-waste management process for more detailed reporting where we derived recycling rates for individual e-waste streams such as scrap copper cables, IT equipment, scrap optical fibre cables and network equipment.

Optus’ 2021-2025 circular economy roadmap which was developed for its Australian operations supports three 2025 waste management goals for products such as SIM cards, modems and mobile phones. These roadmaps include a lifecycle view of the environmental impact products have before reaching stores, during their usage and after their useful life. 

Reducing product packaging

We have set ourselves goals to reduce single-use plastics and also taken a targeted approach to tackle each type of unique waste that we are responsible for, such as SIM cards.

Under Singapore’s Resource Sustainability Act (RSA), Singtel is required to report our packaging waste by categories. We report our packaging data and 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) plans to NEA annually.

In Australia, Optus reports annually to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) which includes disclosures against criteria, such as design and procurement, recycled content, recoverability, disposal labelling and waste. Optus also supports implementing the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) on products which require clear labelling on how customers can recycle products, to continue improving curb side recovery in Australia.

Water use

We place huge importance on water conservation and have established water usage effectiveness (WUE) targets for our data centres.

We have installed private water meters and developed a water balance chart at three of our key premises. The chart allows us to identify areas of significant water usage, as well as problem areas like leaks.

To keep our people abreast of the latest climate-related topics, we provide training and conduct sustainability workshops. We have an e-learning course on the fundamentals of sustainability for our Singapore workforce, which includes a module on environmental sustainability and climate action. The course modules aim to provide our people with basic knowledge of sustainability at Singtel and how they can contribute across our sustainability pillars.

Advancing biodiversity and conservation

To advance biodiversity and conservation, we donated S$1 million to preserve marine biodiversity on Sisters’ Islands Marine Park in 2023, Singapore’s first Marine Park. With approximately 40 hectares of land and sea space, over 250 species of hard corals are found on Sisters’ Islands. The donation goes towards the construction of a lagoon tidal pool, which will support growth of marine biodiversity, buffer coastal areas against erosion and conserve the ecosystem of seagrass and mangroves. Leveraging our core capability of 5G technology with low latency and high connectivity, we will set up an underwater live feed camera to stream live images of the underwater ecosystem for educational classes and everyone to enjoy. 400 staff volunteers have planted 410 trees from 2023 to 2024 and helped to give back to the environment by increasing the population of our native forest and mangrove trees.

As part of our environmental conservation efforts, we have also planted more than 1,500 native trees across Singapore over the past decade. 

Singtel supports Earth Hour

Over the years, Singtel has been supporting WWF Earth Hour, switching off and dimming non-essential lights at our properties and retail stores during the annual symbolic event. We strive to increase environmental awareness among our customers and employees, and encourage them to take responsibility for their own carbon footprint.

Thought leadership

The inaugural Singtel Environmental Sustainability Day 2024 engaged over 400 stakeholders including Board members, partners, customers and investors on climate best practices. It was a platform for our leaders to engage other thought leaders, domain experts and enthusiasts to spark meaningful conversations to advance awareness and drive action within our ecosystem and the industry.

Our leaders also participate actively at forums and conferences to provide insights and discuss pertinent environmental issues. These events include Temasek Sustainability Leaders Forum and Ecosperity.

As part of a Singapore Business Federation-led consortium, Singtel, together with PwC and several related government agencies, will support the set-up of a Singapore Emission Factors Registry by end-2024. The Registry, which will consist of a database of emission factors tailored to Singapore’s context, will help local businesses track and report their emissions more accurately.

Access our FY2020 to FY2024 Environmental Performance Indicators here.