Corporate Responsibility
Waste
Our Approach
ANZ aims to reduce the amount of waste we generate, and to recycle as much of our waste as possible. As well as re-using raw materials, recycling leads to significant savings in energy, water and waste production.
ANZ has committed to performance improvements based on calculating the average daily waste at our 10 major Australian commercial sites, and on monitoring the total amount of recycling across our entire property portfolio.
How we are reducing waste
Recycling and Re-Using
We have introduced a number of internal recycling programs, including most recently a pilot of organic recycling at two of our Melbourne offices encouraging staff to recycle food scraps and other compostable materials. Typically this represents around 10% of the total waste stream.
Mixed recycling has been introduced into our New Zealand commercial offices, meaning staff can now recycle paper, glass, cans, tins and plastics in-house.
We are recycling and reusing the copper and fibre cables from our data centres, and all unwanted office furniture across multiple ANZ sites.
We are also encouraging our customers to recycle by participating in Mobile Muster, a program in place across 250 ANZ branches, which allows both customers and staff to deposit old mobile phones for recycling.
Working with Supplier and Contractors
We are working with our suppliers in both Australia and New Zealand to reduce the amount of packaging of goods and services we procure, for example, converting manuals for our desktop computers to CD format.
Our contracts with cleaning companies include auditing the waste generated by 10 of our large commercial offices.
Reducing Food Waste
Staff of ANZ India receive complimentary lunch at one of three cafes. Historically, over one third of all items chosen by staff have ended up as waste.
Since March 2007, we have made it a priority to reduce this food waste. The measures introduced have helped reduce plate waste by 25% to 35% across all sites.
Case study: eWaste
eWaste is a new initiative launched to reduce the amount of electronic waste in New Zealand and Australia. Historically, electronic equipment not in use is often left sitting on desks or stored in cupboards and subsequently misplaced.
Misplaced equipment is often written off the asset books or paid out to the leasing company, costing ANZ unnecessary money. By adopting a sustainable, uniform approach to capturing, tracking and managing this equipment, ANZ has been able to achieve a reduction to landfill of 36 tonnes to date. Further enhancements are planned this year to maximise the opportunity.
Progress in 2008
In Australia, ANZ has seen an increase of 5% per FTE in waste sent to landfill from our 10 key sites. This is in spite of an overall increase in recycling across the portfolio of sites. ANZ has recently established an Eco Team at one of our key sites specifically charged with reducing waste to landfill.
In New Zealand the focus has been on introducing better recycling facilities including paper, glass, plastics and cans. Total recycling for this financial year is up by 420 tonnes including 34 tonnes of mixed recycling.
Progress chart
The future
We will continue to work towards a target of 10% reduction in waste sent to landfill across the current two-year period, in both Australia and New Zealand.
Further work is required to reduce the volume of waste going to landfill and to maximise the use of recycling wherever possible.
A key component of future strategy is the development of efficient waste management processes for Our New Workplace home to 6500 staff.
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