Responsible Business Practices
Underpinning our sustainability strategy is a set of responsible business practices that guide how we interact with stakeholders across our value chain
Key aspects of these practices include:
- Enhancing our approach to managing modern slavery and human rights risks in our operations and supply chain.
- Increasing the focus on sustainability when selecting and working with suppliers.
- Managing the nature and biodiversity impacts of our operations and supply chain.
- Maintaining a safe and healthy workplace for our employees and others.
- Driving continued improvement in employee engagement through flexibility, learning and development and workplace experience.
Our responsible business practices reinforce and complement our Sustainability Strategy, concentrating on issues that significantly impact our stakeholders.
Human rights and modern slavery
We have committed to respecting human rights as set out in the International Bill of Human Rights and stand with local and international efforts to combat modern slavery, as detailed within our Human Rights Policy.
We continue to work with our industry peers through the Telco Together Foundation to bring an industry-based approach to identify and address modern slavery risks in our operations and supply chain. By working together as an industry, we can apply a more consistent approach to engaging suppliers, streamlining the effort required of them, leading to increased participation and commitment from suppliers on this important issue.
Read about it in our Sustainability Reports, our Modern Slavery Statement, and Human Rights Policy, located on our Investor Relations page.Supplier governance
We have a large supplier base, ranging from strategic partnerships with multinational firms to relationships with small and medium enterprises. Recognising the importance of robust supplier governance in managing our key sustainability risks and opportunities, we have a centralised procurement function, underpinned by an organisation-wide procurement governance framework. Our Supplier Code of Conduct details the expectations we place on our suppliers to manage those sustainability risks and opportunities as well. We operate under a continual improvement approach, enabling us to manage the risks and opportunities presented by our large, complex supply chain.
Environmental Management
As an owner and operator of telecommunications infrastructure, we recognise the impact that we can have on the environment. To address this, we have a range of robust processes and controls in place to effectively manage environmental risk across our operations. Any significant environmental incidents for our operations are tracked through our Health, Safety, Environment management system, and our fibre operations department continues to maintain certification against ISO 14001:2015 International Standard for Environmental Management Systems.
We also recognise the importance of nature and biodiversity to the economy and understand the impacts from nature and biodiversity loss on our operations, and the communities and ecosystems where our people and customers work and live. TPG Telecom is committed to responsibly managing the environmental impacts of our operations and value chain, including those associated with our suppliers, customers, communities and the natural ecosystems in which they work and live.
Our Environmental Policy provides a framework for managing our environmental impacts and to guide our business activities and decision-making processes.
Read about it in our Sustainability Reports and Environmental Policy, located on our Investor Relations page.Workplace health and safety (WHS)
The health and safety of our employees, contractors and broader stakeholders is of the highest importance.
Through our business operations, people may be exposed to safety risks across a wide range of working environments. To manage this risk, we maintain an effective Health and Safety Management system and continuously improve processes to deliver a safe and consistent employee experience.
These risks are both direct and indirect in nature and include inappropriate behaviour towards front line staff by customers in our retail stores, as well as risks during construction and maintenance activities, particularly during the deployment of 5G. We adopt a risk-based approach to actively monitoring and managing our obligations and are aware that any failure to manage these risks could cause harm to our people, partners or members of the public.
In addition to tracking safety incidents across our operations, we monitor any injuries of our employees, no matter how minor, and put in place required changes to address issues of concern.
Our fibre operations team, with the support of our WHS team, continued to maintain ISO 45001:2018 Occupational health and safety management systems accreditation for our fibre engineering services.
We also have in place recurring mandatory safety training modules that help our employees be aware of their risks and responsibilities and are periodically refreshed on how we work safely at TPG Telecom.
This approach includes working closely with our contractors, particularly with respect to higher risk works, so they have strong safety management systems in place and are reporting all safety-related incidents to us on a timely basis.
Performance of our incident reporting, safety training completion rates and contractor management reporting is reviewed as part of our internal safety committee meetings, as well as by our executives and board.
Through our continual improvement approach to WHS, we will continue to drive improvements across our organisation to maintain TPG Telecom as a safe place to work.
Read about it in our Sustainability Reports and Sustainability Data Pack, located on our Investor Relations page.Respect at work
TPG Telecom is committed to providing a safe, flexible and respectful environment for employees and customers, free from all forms of discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment. All of us have the right to share in a sense of common dignity, courtesy and respect, as outlined in our Respect in the Workplace policy, meaning that harassment, bullying and victimisation have no place at TPG Telecom. To support our approach, we maintain a mandatory Respect@Work learning module to enable all employees and leaders to understand how to respond to inappropriate behaviour.
Further demonstrating our commitment, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Iñaki Berroeta signed the Diversity Council Australia’s #IStandForRespect pledge of zero tolerance of sexual harassment in the workplace.
We partnered with Our Watch to support the establishment of a framework for the implementation of their Workplace Equality and Respect approach. Our Watch is a national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia. Together, we have conducted a comprehensive analysis of our current approach to identify further reasonable steps TPG Telecom can take to prevent harassment and other forms of gendered violence from occurring in our workplaces.
Our Code of Conduct emphasises our commitment to a respectful workplace and clearly communicating the reporting options available to our people. We have established a transparent and consistent framework for employees to access flexible work arrangements.
Read about it in our Sustainability Reports and Code of Conduct, located on our Investor Relations page.