growing together through our environmental practices

Environmental stakeholders

As noted earlier, we have begun to develop a formal process for engaging our stakeholders in the overall management of corporate social responsibility issues. We are also specifically committed to engaging environmental stakeholders potentially affected by our business.

Workforce engagement – We encourage dialogue with our team members through interactive training sessions and information sharing. Our internal environmental website contains comprehensive information about TELUS' environmental policies and practices, and has a feedback mechanism for team members to identify environmental issues or concerns.

Another critical resource that forms part of our EMS is an online environmental information system (EIS) accessible through our internal portal. We conducted a complete overhaul of the EIS in 2006, moving from a legacy database of site environmental risks to a new system that tracks site assessments and provides scores to managers on site compliance. Further enhancement of this tool is planned in 2007.

Environmental training – Environmental training is a priority at TELUS. This is increasingly important as TELUS uses more contractors in its non-core operations. We continually look for best practices in corporate environmental training, which extends to numerous areas including spill response, chemical management, transportation of dangerous goods and the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS). In 2006, 9,144 environment-related courses were completed, representing a 20 per cent increase over 2005. This increase is due mainly to returning to business as usual following the settlement of labour issues in 2005. In 2007, we plan to update our training and improve its accessibility to team members.

Outreach – TELUS' environmental stakeholder engagement also involves outreach into the communities where we work and live. The TELUS team interacts with various environmental and sustainability groups both nationally and internationally. In 2006, these included the Business Council of British Columbia, United States Telecom Association Environmental Committee, Global e-Sustainability Initiative, Conference Board of Canada Governance group, City of Vancouver, Corporate Knights, Carbon Disclosure Project and Canadian Business for Social Responsibility.

We are also members and/or sponsors of the Recycling Council of Alberta, The Accountability Project and the Environmental Managers Association of BC.