Environmental performance

Australia Post closely monitors its environmental performance so we are aware of our impacts and the effectiveness of our policies and programs.

We are committed to transparency, consistency and accuracy in our reporting. Environmental performance data including electricity, gas and fuel consumption, waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions are publicly available within our annual reports and our Greenhouse Challenge reports.

Prior to 2007, we measured the greenhouse gas emissions produced by our scope 1 and scope 2 activities; these being emissions produced by the facilities and vehicles that we own and operate. We also measured waste to landfill, which is scope 3.

We are now expanding our data collection to include additional scope 3 emissions, which are emissions produced as a consequence of Australia Post's activities but by sources that are not owned or controlled by us.

Further information about our extended environmental data collection in our Products and Services section, which details information on our carbon-based Life Cycle Assessment of our entire operation.

Environmental performance data

	Emission source	Unit of measurement	2005	2006	2007	2008
Scope 1 - Energy consumption	Natural gas	GJ	106,192	113,556	100,282	106,958
	LPG - non transport	Litres	133,579	124,633	395,438	431,788
	Heating oil	Litres	31,178	20,422	17,748	0
	Diesel	Litres	25,809,184	25,438,882	25,363,240	25,098,039
	Petrol	Litres	6,176,896	6,250,233	6,474,362	6,124,328
	LPG transport	Litres	0	0	8,577	614,023
Scope 2 - Energy consumption	Electricity	kWh	212,789,732	227,161,338	226,178,353	221,180,661

 

Greenhouse gas emissions (tonnes) - by source

	Emission source	2005	2006	2007	2008
Scope 1 - Direct emissions	Natural gas	5,501	5,882	5,194	5,490
	LPG - non transport	204	188	603	665
	Heating oil	80	53	46	0
	Diesel	70,235	69,227	68,336	67,718
	Petrol	15,527	15,711	15,367	14,578
	LPG transport	0	0	14	978
	TOTAL	91,547	91,061	89,560	89,429
Scope 2 - Indirect emissions	Electricity	206,964	222,256	218,744	213,183
	TOTAL	206,964	222,256	218,744	213,183
Scope 1 and 2 - Direct and indirect emissions	TOTAL of all scope 1 and 2 emissions	298,511	313,317	308,304	302,612