Optus today published its 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report, highlighting the company's performance against its economic, social and environmental objectives for the financial year ending 31 March 2010. Titled Connecting Australia, this is the 11th report Optus has published as part of its commitment to being transparent and accountable to key stakeholders about its customer, employee, community and environmental impacts.

Maha Krishnapillai, Director of Government and Corporate Affairs at Optus, said "Corporate responsibility is as much about how we operate as a business as it is how we interact with our customers and the broader community, and we've made great strides in the last financial year to ensure our actions create a positive impact. Connecting people is what we do best so our focus is on promoting social inclusion, productivity, economic growth and telecommunications technologies that aid Australia's transition to a low carbon economy.

"We're especially proud of our investment in making telecommunications services accessible to more Australians by boosting our network coverage across 600 mobile sites around the country, predominantly in regional Australia. We also improved our Customer Care satisfaction rating, further reduced greenhouse gas emissions, increased employee engagement, and fostered new partnerships to promote social inclusion through telecommunications."

Optus 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report Key Highlights

Commitment to customers - improving the customer experience
Serving more than nine million fixed and mobile customers, Optus strives to deliver an exceptional customer experience and enable telecommunications access by bringing its products and services to market in a responsible and transparent manner. Highlights in 2009/2010 financial year included:

• Invested $1.05 billion in network expansion to improve coverage and increased choice and competition in telecommunications services, predominantly in regional Australia
• 87 per cent overall satisfaction with Customer Care representatives, a two per cent year-on-year improvement
• 14 per cent year-on-year reduction in complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman
• Launched the 'Voice of the Customer' to better measure customer experience, gathering one-on-one feedback from 202,000 customers

Commitment to the community - fostering connections to reduce social isolation
Optus is committed to positively contributing to community development through its financial giving, people, products and services by focusing on assisting disengaged young people and building social inclusion.

• Invested a total of $8.24 million in community contributions
• Increased participation in the Optus workplace volunteering program with over 20 per cent of employees contributing 18,000 volunteering hours to community initiatives
• In partnership with Starlight Children's Foundation, rolled-out Livewire Hospital program, an online community for young people living with a serious illness, to hospital wards by providing portable laptops with 3G mobile broadband access
• Donated close to 6,000 pieces of computer equipment to not-for-profit WorkVentures Connect IT

Commitment to our people - increasing employee engagement
With a workforce of over 10,300 employees, Optus aims to create a working environment that attracts and retains the best people by focusing on staff wellbeing and engagement, rewards and recognition and flexible working.

• Achieved 75 per cent employee engagement score, an increase of two per cent year-on-year, with corporate social responsibility identified as the key driver of engagement (81 per cent)
• Launched Women in Networks and IT (WIN IT) forum to develop and retain female talent in the Networks and IT business units, with the intention to expand the concept to all female employees in 2011
• Increased number of employees using flexible work practices by 20 per cent year-on-year

Commitment to environmental sustainability - minimising our environmental impact
Optus is committed to contributing to Australia's efforts to tackle climate change by reducing its environmental footprint through best practice in the management of its operations, processes, products, services and suppliers.

• Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 1.8 per cent year-on-year, despite increasing network reach
• Decreased electricity consumption by a further 1.3 per cent year-on-year by implementing energy-efficiency initiatives
• Moved more customers to online billing, resulting in savings of 76,800 reams of paper a year
• Introduced more onsite recycling facilities, which collectively diverted an additional 19 tonnes of recyclable material from landfill
• Collected approximately 4.4 tonnes of mobile phones for the MobileMuster recycling program

"With the explosive growth of mobile and broadband communications, telecommunications is becoming a key enabler to help Australia transition to a low-carbon economy. Our focus is to foster products and services that can help businesses, individuals and communities minimise their carbon footprint while driving greater productivity," Mr Krishnapillai said.

To view the full report, please visit www.optus.com.au/corporateresponsibility. The report applies the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Guidelines to an 'A' application level.

Media contacts:
Kasia Ciszak/Siobhan Quinn
Optus Corporate Affairs
Tel: (02) 8082 7850