Across the world, energy markets are changing. They’re changing because customers are demanding different products and services, communities are seeking progress on climate change, and technology is evolving.

Australia’s energy future will be affordable and smart – delivered from renewable sources that are backed by flexible energy storage technologies which come together to power our homes, businesses and vehicles. Importantly, it will be low emissions based.

Against this backdrop, AGL’s strategy is to expand and deepen our connection with our customers while evolving to a more flexible supply portfolio. This will allow us to thrive in any of the different future scenarios that could eventuate due to changes in customer demand, how communities act, and how technology evolves.

As we get on with the business of transition, we’re leading through this change, just as we have charted a course through other profound changes over more than 180 years of our history.

To deliver on this, we have three strategic priorities: growth, transformation, and social licence.

We are pursuing growth in both our customer and energy supply portfolios.

• We are expanding our connection with customers by making it simpler to buy essential products and services. This involves adding broadband and mobile to our gas and electricity products and offering customers the benefit of dealing with a single retailer.
• We are focusing on developing a portfolio of assets and contracts to build flexible supply that firms renewables. We will build on the orchestration of smaller assets, managing risks and creating value through trading and supply, and deploying flexible generation.

We will embrace transformation by being more efficient in our traditional business so we can focus on growth and change. This means improving our performance in serving our customers, improving efficiency when delivering maintenance in power plants, and getting better at many other things in our business. We will do these things while moving forward with modernising our business investing in digital, data, and other new technologies, including those consistent with a low-carbon future.

Critical to our success is our ongoing commitment to meet and exceed rising community expectations to support our social licence. Doing the right thing and looking after customers and the community, both now and into the future is a fundamental aspect of our social licence and – arguably – the absolute foundation of our strategy. Without it, we can’t continue to grow and transform as a business.

Strategy and our Climate Statement

We recently released our Climate Statement, which includes five commitments for how AGL is getting on with the business of transition. Our Climate Statement is not our strategy, but it informs it. Our strategy defines how we act on the commitments of our Climate Statement. In more detail:

• From now on, we offer a carbon neutral option on all AGL electricity plans and, by the end of FY21, a carbon neutral option will be available on all AGL products, including electricity, gas, and telecommunications. This will shape our connection – how our multi-product retailer approach will evolve, and we will need to lead the way in innovating on how a broad range of offsets are deployed together with our products.
• These products will require a ‘supply portfolio’ of eligible carbon offset units. We will buy or contract to supply this carbon demand and we will push for more transparency on how offsets are traded.
• We will continue evolving our generation capacity. After opening our Barker Inlet Power Station, we are on course to deploy more flexible capacity and decrease the carbon intensity of our generation output.
• Finally, our social licence focus means that we need to be more and more transparent with our carbon footprint. The communities of the Hunter Valley and Latrobe Valley expect nothing less than a seamless evolution to a low-carbon future.

Now and into the future

With more than 3.8 million customer accounts and one of the nation’s largest electricity generation fleets, AGL is positioned to play a leading role in the transition of Australia’s energy sector.

We’re incredibly passionate about what we do. Our coal-fired power stations remain critical to the security of electricity supply and affordability in the National Electricity Market, and they remain incredibly important to the individuals, families, and communities, particularly in their home states of Victoria and New South Wales.

We’re also incredibly passionate about the energy transition and how we will move into a low-carbon future.

Both of these positions are genuinely and strongly held by many of our people across our business and within the communities where we operate. They arise from a deeply held desire to do the right thing and to look after customers and the community, both now and into the future.