At AT&T, supplier sustainability is critical to our corporate commitment to manage our environmental and social impact.

As we continue to build a sustainable supply chain, we would like to introduce a new online industry sustainability assessment tool, the QuEST Assessor, which our suppliers will use to help drive us to our 2020 goals and beyond. QuEST Forum, a global organization dedicated to quality and sustainability in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) community, developed the tool to help advance sustainability practices and standards.

This week, we’re in Nashville, Tennessee at the QuEST Forum’s Service Providers Summit to help introduce the QuEST Assessor tool to our peers and suppliers. The tool, created by QuEST Forum, uses a 10 factor sustainability model to benchmark current sustainability performance. Assessment categories include environmental management, carbon footprint, corporate social responsibility, supply chain management and circular economy. The online tool will evaluate a company’s inputs against best practices and industry benchmarks to identify areas of improvement to enhance the company’s cost effectiveness and sustainability.

AT&T’s goal is to establish sustainability metrics that transform our supply chain and the supply chains of our suppliers. The QuEST Assessor measures supplier performance against those metrics. We are working with some of our suppliers now to begin using the Assessor. In the coming year, we will transition more suppliers over to this tool to ensure we push toward our Sustainability Goals.