Environment strategy

TransAlta’s business strategy is also a sustainability strategy. It encompasses:

Drive the base: we will improve our plant performance on a sustained basis while improving productivity to drive down costs; this will also further decrease emissions.

Green our portfolio: we have been growing our renewables portfolio for 10 years, and will continue to build on our geothermal, wind and hydro assets as well as look for opportunities to expand our natural gas fleet.

Reposition coal: we will develop and apply new technologies that will enable our plants to continue to provide affordable power.

TransAlta’s impact on the environment is primarily through emissions to air. We have developed an emissions management strategy that includes four key pillars:

• Implementing internal emission reduction projects
• Growing our renewables portfolio
• Investing in transformative technologies
• Purchasing emission offsets

TransAlta’s operations have other environmental impacts: water use; mining and land disturbance, and wildlife and habitat disturbance. TransAlta’s practices adhere to regulatory guidelines and where appropriate, it has strategies in place to ensure a thorough and measured approach to mitigation efforts.

We have established a pattern of taking action and testing solutions ahead of regulation. We proactively research and test solutions, share what we learn with policy-makers and work collaboratively with industry, typically resulting in more workable and practical answers.

TransAlta also continually pursues ways to increase the efficiency of our operations. These efforts are resulting in decreased emissions.