X
Sound management of the social, environmental and economic challenges and opportunities that arise from our activities is central to the overall success and long-term value of our business.
At AGL, 'sustainability' is about recognising that if we want our business to be here, successful and respected in the next 10, 20, or 50 years, we need to do the right thing by our Shareholders, our employees, our customers, the community and the environment.
For AGL, sustainability is not just about recycling paper or building wind farms. It’s about the way we make decisions and consider the impacts of our decisions on all of our stakeholders. Sustainability is also about being transparent, responsible and accountable to those stakeholders.
The material sustainability risks and opportunities that inform AGL’s business priorities include:
Our ability to respond effectively to these challenges is fundamental to the success of our business and our ability to deliver on the AGL integrated strategy.
Having a healthy balance sheet and sticking to our strategy gives our investors confidence in the long term value of our shares. Our ability to incorporate challenges such as climate change into the Company's strategy is creating value as we continue to develop our portfolio of renewable generation assets.
We believe that effectively managing our social, environmental and economic risks drives business improvement, enhances our brand, demonstrates the long-term value of our Company, helps maintain regulator confidence, drives strategic regulatory reform, secures community support and engages our employees.
We have set six goals to guide our long-term performance in each key sustainability area, and have agreed strategies for working towards the achievement of these long-term goals. Each year, we report on our progress towards these goals and set targets and actions for the year to come.
Click here to access our Strategy and Performance Summary for 2008/09.
AGL has been reporting its sustainability performance publicly for many years, and provides data on a wide range of sustainability metrics to external stakeholders on a yearly basis within the annual sustainability report.
Our sustainability reporting practices have acted as a catalyst for delivering improvements in business results in many areas. In particular, our greenhouse gas reporting, disclosure, and policy development has helped us prepare for the introduction of emissions trading, and positioned us to create additional value from our business under a carbon-constrained environment.
AGL has set a three-year plan to further embed sustainability into our business strategy.
A key part of this plan is the quarterly reporting of a set of internal sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) to the AGL Executive Team and the Board Safety, Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Committee.
AGL's internal key performance indicators do not replace the wider set of sustainability data published in the Sustainability Report, but provide additional information to the Board and Executive Team for the purposes of decision making. The intent of the internal KPIs is to encourage broad-based performance scrutiny, identify areas for further improvement, establish targets and tolerances and further embed sustainability as part of core business.
An initial set of internal KPIs was introduced in 2008/09, with further indicators scheduled for introduction during 2009/10.
AGL became a signatory to the Energy Supply Association of Australia’s (esaa) ‘Sustainable Practice Framework’ upon its release in early 2009.
As a signatory, AGL has agreed to support nine ‘sustainability principles’. These principles are aligned with AGL’s sustainability goals and strategies.
AGL has agreed to self-assess and report to the esaa on our annual sustainability performance. AGL also encourages our peers to provide high quality disclosure on their sustainability risks and challenges.
AGL's Sustainability Report is the means by which we report our sustainability performance information to the esaa. Performance indicators used in the esaa Sustainable Practice Framework are aligned to the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) 'G3 Guidelines' and related Electric Utilities sector supplement. A full index of the esaa and GRI indicators is included in this report.
