This is an exciting time for the TELUS team as our company is well positioned to realize the benefits of our major strategic growth investments and strong operational execution. At the same time, we remain passionate about our commitment to build healthy and sustainable communities. We understand that corporate social responsibility is inextricably linked to our financial performance and the health and well-being of the communities where we live, work and serve. Moreover, our shared set of leadership values – we embrace change and initiate opportunity, we have a passion for growth, we believe in spirited teamwork and we have the courage to innovate – continue to guide our actions and decisions and remain as relevant today as they were when we created them a decade ago.
Notably in 2010, TELUS signed the United Nations Global Compact as we continue to strive to conduct our business operations and strategies to align with accepted principles in human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption practices. These practices are outlined by the Global Compact’s 10 universally accepted principles. By participating in this initiative, TELUS is adding another dimension of accountability that exemplifies our dedication to corporate social responsibility for all of our operations.
In 2010, we continued to progress our company, creating sustainable economic value for our many stakeholders whilst delivering increased choice for our valued customers. We improved our position in the smartphone marketplace with Canada's fastest* coast-to-coast HSPA+ wireless network, which enables us to offer a wide array of compelling devices to meet the growing demand of customers across Canada. We also continued to enhance the HSPA+ network with the addition of new 4G dual-cell technology, which impressively we expect to approximately double data download speeds. Further, to continue to enhance our wireless network and capacity, we announced our planned urban roll-out of next generation wireless LTE technology, with services expected to be launched in 2012. Our business strategy includes leveraging our network sharing agreement with Bell Canada, enabling us to deploy network enhancements faster and more cost effectively than most of our competitors, whilst vigorously competing against each other in the marketplace.
The TELUS team also enhanced and expanded our wireline broadband network to enable faster speeds and advanced Internet services to meet the growing needs of consumers and deliver our Optik TV service to more communities. Our footprint now reaches more than two million households in British Columbia, Alberta and Eastern Quebec. Additionally, we continue to overlay VDSL2 technology that enables even faster network speeds and delivers more HD channels into the home. We expect to complete the overlay in 2011. We will also continue to build fibre-to-the-home access to connect new single-family residential developments and new condos and apartments.
In 2010, TELUS expanded its leadership position in healthcare technology solutions by becoming the first company in Canada to launch a revolutionary e-health platform – TELUS Health Space®. This future friendly tool brings people and technology together, providing one of the most fundamentally important pieces of the healthcare puzzle – access to information. TELUS Health Space enables customers to create, store and manage their personal medical information electronically and share it with their families and healthcare providers in an easy, safe and secure manner. Through trials with 2,000 team members and 200 patients and caregivers in Quebec, we are actively shaping new services that should soon be available to millions of Canadians.
TELUS and our team members are passionate about giving back to the communities where we live, work and serve. We understand there is a symbiotic relationship between the success of our company and the health of our communities, making our efforts to live up to our brand promise – the future is friendly – essential in all that we do. The ongoing generosity and compassion demonstrated by our team in this regard is truly inspirational. Since 2000, TELUS, our team members and retirees will, by year-end 2011, have contributed $245 million to charitable organizations and volunteered 4.1 million hours of service in local communities, making a significant impact across Canada.
Our company’s deeply-rooted legacy of caring also includes the work of our ten TELUS Community Boards located in cities across Canada. Our innovative approach, which places funding decisions in the hands of local community leaders supported by TELUS team members, further reflects our shift from allocating funds to large sponsorships in favour of local, grassroots charities. Collectively in 2010, our boards allocated $4.1 million in support of more than 300 community projects. Since their inception to the end of 2010, the boards have allocated $25 million and supported more than 1,800 community projects across Canada.
Our passion to build healthier communities is exemplified each year by our TELUS Day of Giving™. In 2010, a record 10,400 volunteers participated in 175 activities across Canada. In addition, the TELUS Community Ambassadors®, our dedicated retiree and team member volunteers, distributed more than 60,000 care items to neighbours in need.
In recognition of all these efforts, TELUS was named the 2010 most outstanding philanthropic corporation in the world by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Notably, this is the first time a Canadian company has been recognized with this prestigious international award.
We are also aligning charitable giving with TELUS’ revenue growth, whilst enhancing brand appeal and an emotional connection with our customers. Notably, we empower socially conscious consumers to make purchasing decisions that benefit local charities. In 2010, our TELUS Go Pink campaign raised close to $2.5 million for leading breast cancer charities across Canada for the purchase of digital mammography equipment. Additionally, $3.6 million was raised for numerous local community organizations and projects through the sale of TELUS Optik TV.
Over the past year, we also intensified our focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences and made significant advances in strengthening our business ownership culture across the organization. In June, we introduced Customers First, an innovative internal program to heighten our focus on the customer experience. This initiative enabled hundreds of senior managers from across TELUS to spend a full day with our customer-facing teams to experience firsthand what our front line team members experience every day. Notably, the key learnings identified as a result of this initiative are already leading to measurable improvements.
On the wireless side, our Clear & Simple® rate plans, which offer simplified pricing and no system access or carrier 911 charges, make it easy for wireless customers to choose a plan that is right for them. In 2010, we added a Clear & Simple Device Upgrade program to help customers obtain new phones before their contracts end. We also introduced free TELUS Data Notifications to help customers manage their data usage and lower roaming rates for customers travelling internationally.
Customers have responded positively and, despite reductions in demand for some legacy voice services, we attracted more than 375,000 total new customer connections in 2010, compared to 270,000 in 2009.
TELUS and our team members are committed to environmental sustainability and in 2010, we pledged to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2020, compared to 2009 levels. Within the same 10-year period, we further committed to reducing our energy consumption by 10 per cent compared to 2009 levels. Fundamental to achieving these goals is a solid strategic approach that addresses all major areas of energy reduction.
We also focused on adopting the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) principles for the design, construction and operation of green buildings. In 2010, TELUS House Ottawa was awarded LEED gold certification from the Canada Green Building Council. Additionally, we opened TELUS House Toronto and Place TELUS Quebec, which are built to LEED gold and silver criteria, respectively, and we look forward to receiving certification. More recently, we announced our TELUS Garden head office development in Vancouver, which will be the first in Canada built to the new LEED Platinum standard.
We believe that a company can only deliver the best results in the industry by having the best team. A new tentative collective agreement between TELUS and the Telecommunications Workers Union reached in April 2011 was ratified by union members on June 9, 2011. This agreement was made possible through a professional negotiating process that has set the stage for a constructive relationship into the future. We believe this collective agreement is a progressive contract that reflects our competitive marketplace and balances the needs of our team members, our customers and our shareholders.
We continue to introduce innovative initiatives to create a more enjoyable and productive work environment. For example, more than half our team members are equipped to utilize mobile or work-at-home options, enabling them to work where and when it is most convenient. We measure our progress through an annual Pulsecheck employee survey and, in 2010, an improved engagement score was achieved.
TELUS is committed to fostering diversity within the workplace and the community. Two years ago, we introduced the Diversity and Inclusiveness volunteer council, which, among other things, supports resource groups such as Spectrum, which represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning team members, Eagles for team members with an Aboriginal background and Connections for women. In March this year, we released the 2010 TELUS Diversity and Inclusiveness report, which highlights our efforts in becoming an employer and service provider of choice.
Our efforts to foster diversity and inclusiveness have garnered external recognition. TELUS has been recognized by Waterstone Human Capital as having one of Canada's 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures for the 2009 to 2011 award timeframe. Moreover, TELUS was selected by Mediacorp Canada as one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers for the third consecutive year.
Looking ahead, I am confident that we have many opportunities to build on the momentum created in 2010 to generate sustainable value in a socially responsible way for many stakeholders – our communities, our customers, our team members and our investors. Indeed, we have measurable corporate social responsibility goals – economic, social and environmental – that will drive the TELUS organization to make continued progress in 2011 and beyond.
Thank you for our continued support.
Darren Entwistle
Member of the TELUS Team
June 27, 2011
*Based on TELUS’ tests of data throughput speeds in large Canadian urban centres available from national high-speed packet access plus (HSPA+) service providers. Limitations apply. See the term “fastest” in the CSR Glossary for details.
The TELUS team has a long history of demonstrating early leadership and a commitment to continuous improvement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We have disclosed our environmental performance since 1992 and we have produced a CSR report for 14 consecutive years. Over the last decade, we have made a concerted effort each year to expand the scope of our report and to present information in a transparent, balanced and comprehensive manner.
TELUS has considerable financial strength and a demonstrated commitment to transparency and adherence to prudent financial policies and guidelines. These have guided our actions successfully over the past decade as we executed our operational strategy while building financial strength, thereby earning the confidence of investors. Our company's improved financial performance in 2010 included a 33 per cent increase in share price and a total shareholder return of 40 per cent. By comparison, the Toronto Stock Exchange provided a return of 14 per cent, or 18 per cent including dividends, and the MSCI World Telecom Services Index, which represents an index of peers, provided a return of five per cent, or 12 per cent including dividends.
We also have a solid track record of attaining the targets we set publicly each year. In the past decade, we have met or exceeded 77 per cent of our 48 consolidated financial targets, including three out of four in 2010.
Our commitment to clearly set and stick to our financial policies has also been a mainstay of our disciplined financial management approach for more than a decade. Similarly, our belief that “what gets measured gets done” is extended to our CSR program. As such, we set annual long-term targets, measure and monitor our CSR progress and then report back on our results.
Our CSR scorecard summarizes the 2010 CSR targets, actual results and highlights, as well as our 2011 CSR priorities and targets. We have once again engaged Pricewaterhouse Coopers & LLP (PwC) to review certain key performance indicators and provide an assurance statement as to the accuracy of the reported results.
To gauge our success, we follow the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) definition of CSR, which is:
A firm’s accountability to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development.
Last year, we self-assessed our 2009 CSR disclosure at an A+ GRI Application Level. This year, we have taken an additional step and have asked PwC to check and confirm our rating.
We have also successfully evolved our financial reporting to adhere to new standards. Commencing with our fiscal year beginning on January 1, 2011, TELUS, along with most other public companies in Canada, began reporting our financial performance in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Previously, we reported in accordance with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Due to a comprehensive and, as we have been advised by our external auditors, well-executed changeover plan, the transition was smooth.
A firm belief in the importance of full and fair disclosure and excellence in corporate governance provides the foundation for our approach to CSR. We take a proactive approach to corporate disclosure and have adopted a number of leading-edge governance policies. Our Board of Directors was among the first in Canada to voluntarily adopt say on pay and the members of our Board are very engaged in discussions and oversight of key enterprise risks. Notably, we provided updates to the Board via its Audit Committee on our environmental and CSR performance each quarter.
Our efforts continue to gain external recognition. TELUS was recognized for having the best financial reporting at the 2011 IR Magazine Canada awards. Also, in 2010, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) recognized TELUS for our comprehensive 2009 shareholder information package with the following awards:
This year, we have expanded the scope of our CSR report to provide a greater focus on our customers and our concentrated efforts to enhance customer service. In order to ensure sustainable growth for TELUS, we must create value for our customers who will reward us with loyalty and revenue for services over time.
Looking ahead, we remain committed to continuing to integrate CSR into our business activities. We are working to ensure we operate in a way that considers the economic, social and environmental impact of our business decisions and operations for the benefit of our customers, team members, investors and the communities where we live, work and serve.
Sincerely,
Robert McFarlane
Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer
Member of the TELUS Team
June 27, 2011
Being one of Canada's leading corporate citizens is about committing to standards that ensure long-term success.
In 2010, TELUS International Philippines (TIP) launched TELUS International University (TIU) to provide continuing education opportunities for TIP team members. By participating in TIU, qualified team members can save up to 50 per cent on the cost of their tuition and benefit from the use of a library within the workplace.
In June 2010, TELUS team members hosted more than 100 clients, reporters, community partners and elected officials at TELUS House Toronto − our new home in downtown Toronto.
The 2010 Olympic Winter Games provided our team an important opportunity to demonstrate our Work Styles program in action by embracing telecommuting and taking 1,000 vehicles off the streets of Vancouver.
TELUS team members have access to a program called Bravo that enables them to recognize the achievements of their colleagues across TELUS every day, and career milestones to mark long service with our company.
In 2010, the TELUS team worked with Port Metro Vancouver over eight months to remove two obsolete telecommunication copper cables from the Burrard Inlet near Port Moody, British Columbia.
Rachel used to think she couldn’t run. That changed in 1999 when the program manager in Human Resources had a light bulb moment. She decided, once and for all, to become a runner as well as shed some unwanted pounds.
In 2010, TELUS’ Green Teams hosted approximately 65 events and special projects, including workshops on energy and organic gardening, screenings of various documentaries presentations on topics, such as the recycling of electronics at TELUS.
In 2011, TELUS introduced a new program called Closer to the Customer to help deliver on our future friendly brand promise to clients.