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The NBN has announced plans to switch to 100% renewable electricity by the end of 2025 and use electric or hybrid cars where possibly by 2030, reports AAP.

Australia’s NBN Co has announced a “towards-zero carbon ambition”, with the company outlining a plan to use electricity exclusively from renewable sources by the end of 2025.

As well as purchasing 100% renewable electricity from December 2025, an initial three-year roadmap works toward switching to electric or hybrid cars were possible by 2030, and reducing annual energy use by 25 gigawatt hours by the end of 2025.

Total electricity generation in Australia was estimated to be 265,232 GWh in 2020, according to government numbers. More than 8.3m premises are connected to the NBN network, and the company says it will seek a “more efficient use of energy as data demand and the number of connected premises continues to grow”.

NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue said:

Beyond the direct impact of becoming an environmentally sustainable business, what’s equally exciting is the power of the network to help enable digitisation, and the huge benefits that unlocks for the nation in terms of emissions reductions, as well as socio-economic benefits.

The company has already entered into a renewable power purchasing agreement intended to deliver almost 20% renewable energy to the network by the 2o23 financial year. It plans to reach the 100% target through further power purchase agreements and contracts for renewables.

The announcement comes as NBN Co becomes the first Australian telco and government business enterprise to join RE100, a global initiative joining “the world’s most influential businesses committed to 100% renewable power”.

RE100 Australian co-ordinator Jon Dee said:

It joins 110 other major companies in Australia that have joined RE100 and made the commitment to switch to 100% renewable electricity.

Between them, Australian members of RE100 use more than 5.5 terawatt hours of electricity a year, enough to power 800,000 Australian homes.

The towards-zero carbon ambition is part of NBN Co’s second sustainability report released toay, which also looks at social and economic impacts.

With 33% of management positions held by women, NBN Co outperforms the national average, it notes. Additionally, as at 30 June 2021, NBN Co had a gender pay gap of less than 1%.