The environmental impacts of our operations are diverse. Through our mobile network, Vodafone's footprint spans the length of the country, across urban and rural locations. This network requires energy to run and produces electronic waste when we maintain and upgrade it. Electronic waste is also the result of the sale of hundreds of thousands of new mobile handsets each year, into a country where phones already outnumber people.
For our business to be sustainable we must be responsible in our management of these impacts. We can also take advantage of the opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of our customers through smart application of our technology.
Vodafone announced its global climate change approach in 2008, including a key commitment is to reduce Vodafone's global emissions by 50 percent by 2020, against baseline emissions from 2006. This reduction is intended to be a direct reduction in emissions from our operations, without any offsetting. At present this stategy excludes operations integerated into the Vodafone Group since 2006, including operating companies in Turkey and India, which are formulating individual strategies.
The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme is intended to introduce a market mechanism to reduce New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions and meet its international carbon reduction obligations. In its current form the trading scheme is being implemented with a staggered introduction of emissions caps across all emitting sectors, covering forestry, industry, electricity generation, fuel and agriculture. Vodafone New Zealand does not consume electricity and fuel in the significant quantities required to be directly covered by the trading scheme, although our energy costs have increased moderately as a result of its introduction.
Vodafone New Zealand's carbon dioxide emissions increased 3.7 percent last year. This increase is due to investment in increased network capacity. Emissions reductions from other sources partially offset the network growth. Transport emissions, which includes air travel and vehicle fuel, reduced 10.2 pecent. We also achieved an emissions reduction of 8.3 percent from our offices.
Emissions from our network operations increased 7.7 percent over the past year, which corresponds to a growth in the capacity of our networks.
Our long-term goal is to reduce outright emissions across all our operations. At present we are running two networks in parallel, both 2G and 3G. Ultimately, as our customers migrate across to the newer and more efficient 3G network, we will be able to decommission 2G network equipment. Fourth generation networks (4G, or LTE) are likely to integrate 2G and 3G technology in one box, delivering further efficiency gains. In the meantime, our focus is to run our current networks efficiently. This includes optimising current technology, adopting efficient solutions such as free-cooling air-conditioning and assessing onsite renewables such as wind and solar generation for remote mobile phone sites and core network hubs.
| 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network | 15726 | 14608 | 13576 |
| Offices | 2277 | 2482 | 2199 |
| Retail | 151 | 162 | 148 |
| Transport | 1714* | 1909* | 2677 |
| Total | 19867 | 19159 | 18599 |
*Air travel figures are for the 12 months from February
Mobile recycling is one of our key environmental initiatives. The mobile industry has shown leadership as one of the first to collect consumer electronic waste. Despite the availability of multiple recycling options for our customers, we are still struggling to meet our mobile recycling collection targets. With the introduction of the Waste Minimisation Act, similar product stewardship schemes will be introduced across many other products groups, raising public awareness of the importance of recycling and the availability of recycling facilities.
Last year we collected 14,236 mobile handsets for recycling. We believe our collection numbers should be far higher. However, this follows a similar trend noticed across other Vodafone operating markets, where tough economic conditions have slowed sales of new handsets, hence limiting the number of handsets and opportunities to recycle.
If a phone is still in good working order, the best environmental outcome is for that phone to be reused by someone else. A working phone also represents a social and economic opportunity for someone in the developing world, whom otherwise would not have access to any form of telecommunications.
In March 2010 we launched a new mobile recycling partnership with the Starship Foundation. The Starship Foundation launched their own rival mobile recycling programme in 2009, and had been running a scheme, whereby suitable collected phones were resold into developing countries. The proceeds from these sales are directed to the Starship Children's Hospital. We are hopeful the high profile of the Starship cause, and the participation of other industry members in the scheme, will assist in raising awareness of mobile recycling and consequently increase collection performance.
| 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handsets collected | 14236 | 16382 | 41925 |
We have an ongoing commitment to reuse or recycle more than 95 percent of the waste from our network operations. The profile of our network waste is changing. Previously our focus has been on new site builds, and maintenance of the existing network. We are now starting a phase of replacement of older technology with next generation equipment. In the past year we reused or recycled 96.8 percent of our network waste by mass.
Our network waste data is sourced from a raft of network contractors, suppliers and service providers. In previous years we have commissioned an independent audit of our network waste stream, to ensure we are capturing all sources of network waste, to test our reporting system and our data accuracy. These audits have shown areas for improvement, and highlighted gaps in reporting across our internal network team, which is split into deployment, transmission and maintenance units. We are confident in the accuracy of the data reported, however we are working to improve data capture to ensure any gaps are filled to get a complete picture of network waste.
Some of our older airconditioning units contain R-22, an ozone depleting HCFC used as a refrigerant. Our target is to replace all R-22 units by 2012. All sales and import of R-22 will cease across New Zealand from 2015.
| 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disposed (kg) | 2293 | 963 | 959 |
| Reused or Recycled (kg) | 69,844 | 25,191 | 53,429 |
| Percentage Recycled/Reused | 96.8% | 98.3% | 98.2% |
