Our Approach

Carbon summary

Our understanding and management of resource consumption and carbon reporting continues to improve. In previous years we have worked with external service providers to collate our resource consumption information, resulting in improvements in understanding our carbon footprint. In anticipation of increasing statutory reporting obligations we identified the need to strengthen our internal capability to track resource consumption data to enable improved reporting, greater data integrity and audit capability.

In 2009, reporting will commence under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act which requires the capture of energy consumption and greenhouse emissions data for operational activities. This will require a high level of data integrity and audit capability which our resource consumption database will provide. It will also enable easier and more responsive reporting from all areas of our business.

As at 30 June 2009 we had collated historical resource consumption data for all properties under operational control for two years, with systems in place to capture information on a month to month basis going forward. This has enabled us to restate our reporting of previous years and will provide an auditable data system with the flexibility to meet current and future voluntary and statutory reporting obligations in the most efficient manner.

In addition, we will be able to access and analyse resource consumption information on every property we manage to assist in budget preparation and the supporting rationale for major capital works programs that have a significant resource efficiency opportunity. This is a key focus in our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, which enables greater accountability in our environmental accounting.

Annual GHG Emissions

Data note

Previous reports have provided calendar year data which is not directly comparable to the 31 March 2009 data presented in this report. To enable comparability and greater data integrity we have reported two years of data for the years ended 31 March 2008 and 31 March 2009, collated from our resource consumption database.

Operational control: at DEXUS we define operational control as properties we own and manage either internally or through third party agreements.

Resource consumption data

The table below shows our carbon footprint for the year ending March 2009 compared with the same period last year. This has been calculated using the National Greenhouse Accounts October 2008 for our Australian assets and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for our international assets.

Scope 3 emissions reporting is not required under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act. Therefore, we have captured emissions associated with business travel in 2008/09 only (see diagram on the right).

We will enhance our Scope 3 emissions reporting in next year’s report.