ST Telemedia Reaffirms Commitment to Sustainable Value Creation with Release of Inaugural Report

Recognising the critical need for companies to lead the change in improving the environment for all, ST Telemedia (STT) has reiterated its commitment to collectively drive this change as an individual company and at a Group level with clear set of commitments and course of action in our inaugural Sustainability Report 2021.

The report details STT’s response to the climate change crisis – including pledging to be net-zero carbon by 2022, how it is continuing to grow inclusively, and how its governance structures and multi-year roadmap contribute towards achieving its goal of sparking an ecosystem of inclusive and sustainability growth. The report also shares the progress STT has made in 2021 following the introduction of its Sustainability Framework in October the same year.

Last quarter, STT GDC took more concrete steps to fulfil its commitment to achieving carbon-neutral data centre operations by 2030. They include inking a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Linde, YTL PowerSeraya and YTL Data Center to explore using clean hydrogen to power data centres and a partnership with Schneider Electric and Iceotope to explore immersive liquid cooling technology for future data centre builds. Both initiatives aim to build a more sustainable data centre ecosystem in Singapore, future-proof next-generation data centre builds, and contribute to the country’s sustainability efforts. As part of its sustainable data centre framework, STT GDC and its respective partners will conduct proof-of-concepts in Singapore to use low-carbon power, and reduce power and water consumption, respectively.

Further strengthening its commitment to sustainability, the DC service provider recently published a Sustainability-Linked Financial Framework, linking its financing approach to its ESG progress.

Today, across various countries and as a Group, STT GDC derives 43% of its electricity consumption from zero-carbon renewable sources. The Group had also participated in several green initiatives such as a pilot auction of carbon credits by voluntary carbon market Climate Impact Exchange and was recognised for its LEED Gold certified green data centres.

Bespin Global has established a cloud operations centre and a training academy as part of its collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to accelerate cloud transition and digital transformation in the region. The cloud operations centre, which includes security and network operations functions to monitor infrastructure threats and ensure the optional performance of servers and applications, seeks to bring greater cloud expertise to the Middle Eastern market. Meanwhile, the training academy aims to build up a talent pool of cloud specialists with strong capabilities to address the current country’s shortage of such professionals. 

Just over a year after its entry into South Korea, STT GDC is now planning a second data centre site in Gasan-dong, Seoul. This expansion is a natural next step for the company to meet the market’s growing customer demands and support the country’s digital transformation. The establishment of this data centre site is backed by a global institutional investor and Samsung SRA Asset Management, the real estate investment arm of Samsung Group. The fast-growing data centre operator marked its eighth year in June. Since its inception in 2014, STT GDC has expanded across nine geographies, with diverse teams operating over 170 data centres globally today.

TeleChoice's wholly-owned subsidiary, NxGen Communications, has acquired Radiance Communications, an established industry player in ICT services, unified communications (UC) and contact centre (CC) solutions. The benefits of the strategic move are multi-fold – Radiance’s complementary core competencies in UC and CC offerings will boost TeleChoice’s service offerings, while its huge customer base will significantly expand TeleChoice’s market share and advance its leadership position in the market. The acquisition will also enable TeleChoice to reap greater operational efficiency from economies of scale of the combined operations, and be better positioned to capture future growth opportunities.

StarHub clinched the top spot in the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) 2022 for Mobile and TV among the three operators, underscoring its dedication to delivering a world-class experience for its customers through constantly pushing the envelope on customer experiences and forging partnerships for enhanced service offerings. The CSISG is a landmark measure of customer satisfaction in the services industry of Singapore. With the recognition, StarHub will continue to refresh the way it engages with customers and create new experiences for them.

CloudCover has clinched its third “Google Cloud Services Partner of the Year – Asia Pacific” title, a testament to the company’s consistent performance in providing exceptional service and enabling customer success by innovating and delivering the right combination of Google Cloud solutions.

GDS ranked first among data center operators in China in Greenpeace’s 2022 Clean Cloud report.  It emerged top in green power consumption and data disclosure, and was the only Chinese tech company that reported renewable energy usage above 30% in 2021.

GDS was also named the “Top 10 Most Influential Third-Party Data Center Operators in China” in the recent China Third-Party Data Center Operator Analysis Report (2022) released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and the News and Communication Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The report presented a detailed analysis of key indicators assessments such as overall portfolio scale, business development capability, and financial performance. GDS came up top in all three indicators.

VIRTUS was named “Most Outstanding Data Centre Provider” in the UK at the 2022 Business Elite Awards organised by SME News Magazine. The accolade is a testament to the company’s ability to deliver world-class data centre solutions and constant innovation to its customers. SME News covers small- and medium-sized businesses —one of the most important sectors in the UK economy.  VIRTUS recently officially opened its latest facility, LONDON8, reinforcing its commitment to support the digital economy with reliable, resilient and responsible data centres. 

Armor was recognised as “Market Leader” in FeaturedCustomer’  Summer 2022 Application Security Software Customer Success Report. Securing the ranking underscores the company’s ability to deliver customer-centric security outcomes successfully. FeaturedCustomers is a customer reference platform for B2B business software and services. Its Customer Success ranking is based on data from its customer reference platform, market presence, web presence, and social presence, as well as additional data aggregated from online sources and media properties. To achieve the Market Leader rank, the provider must have a substantial customer base and market share and have the highest ratio of customer success content, content quality results, and social media presence relative to its company size.

In June, nearly 40 employee volunteers from STT, STT GDC and STT Cloud, and 13 children from STT’s community partner Life Community Services Society, came together for a beach clean-up with the collective aim of raising awareness on coastal pollution and environmental degradation. The clean-up was organised by STT as part of our environmental stewardship. Apart from helping to preserve the environment – a whooping 131kg of trash was collected within two hours – participants also gleaned insights into the various types and sources of marine waste polluting the waters.

It has been an exciting few months as STT continues our strong support for education-related programmes which enable promising students to achieve their full potential:

• STT launched two merit awards valued at S$5,000 each with the Singapore University of Technology and Design for Data Analytics and Business Analytics and Operations Research. We also established three performance awards valued at S$3,000 each with the Singapore Institute of Technology in the disciplines of Computing Science; Information Security and Software Engineering. The awards, which will be given out annually for three years, seek to recognise and encourage academic excellence among students in the disciplines related to our business focuses.

• STT also welcomed four new ST Telemedia Catalyst Award recipients from Temasek Polytechnic –our sixth intake since the inception of the programme in 2017. The recipients from Communications & Media Management; Human Resources; Computer Engineering; and Communication Design, are receiving industry-relevant training at STT, STT Cloud and CloudCover. Up to two more award recipients are expected to join in September.

StarHub is inviting customers to join the company on its green journey through new digital sustainability initiatives that will culminate in the removal of up to 500 tonnes or more of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For a start, customers were encouraged to tap ‘Plant-A-Tree with StarHub’ on the StarHub app. The more pledges received, the more trees StarHub would plant.

In a separate initiative,  giga! celebrated its third birthday by providing up to 10,000 mobile lines to Persons with Disabilities and their loved ones, empowering them with digital access at no cost. It also encouraged its customers to do good by partaking in a digital pledge of support for the initiative. A total of S$1.2million was committed for the initiative.