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Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Index

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) provides a framework of recommended disclosures for corporate reporting on climate-related risks and opportunities, categorized by Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets. Based on the climate scenario analysis we conducted in 2022/2023, this index references AT&T’s reporting against TCFD’s voluntary guidelines for universal disclosures and cross-industry, climate-related metrics. This is our fourth report aligned to the TCFD guidelines and covers our 2022 fiscal year. Many of the disclosures appear in our CDP Climate Change disclosure due to close alignment between the two frameworks; additionally, relevant disclosures are also contained within our Climate Strategy & Transition Plan2022 Sustainability Summary, and Sustainability Reporting online resource.

Governance

Disclosure Response
Describe the board’s oversight of climate related risks and opportunities

Board of Directors Oversight

AT&T recognizes that climate change can present risks and opportunities to our business, employees, communities and other stakeholders. The Governance and Policy Committee (GPC) of the AT&T Board of Directors (Board) oversees the entirety of AT&T’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy – including related risks, policies, programs and ESG reporting.

This oversight includes our climate-related strategy, which addresses emissions reduction objectives, consumption of electricity and water, investments in renewable energy, waste management, fleet operations and policies governing our supply chain. The GPC provides input/guidance in the development of our climate-related strategy and transition plan, as well as our programmatic and managerial approach to environmental and climate-related issues. Members of the GPC come from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds, giving them the experience, depth of knowledge, judgment and vision to challenge our assumptions and continuously improve our work.

In addition to discussions with individual GPC members throughout the year, our Senior Vice President (SVP) – Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ESG, who is also our Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), presents on relevant topics and is present at all GPC meetings for ESG dialog. In 2022, three regularly scheduled GPC meetings included environmental topics such as, but not limited to, business-affecting climate transition, ESG reporting and supply chain responsibility.

The Audit Committee of the Board oversees AT&T’s compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, as well as internal enterprise risk assessment activities and audit functions which incorporate ESG risks and disclosures. The Chief Compliance Officer and the SVP of Audit Services each meet with the Audit Committee four times per year.

For more information, see our 2023 Proxy StatementESG Oversight issue brief, Board of Directors Committees and Charters and CDP Response (question C1.1a).

Describe the management’s role in assessing and managing climate- related risks and opportunities

Business Management

AT&T’s CSO oversees internal management of AT&T’s climate-related risks, opportunities and strategy-setting process, and receives weekly updates on climate-related activities and developments throughout the business.

Our CSO is also deeply involved in major climate-related strategy decisions. This includes our agreements to invest in renewable energy, the continued enhancements of our Climate Change Analysis Tool (CCAT), and the launch of our Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR), in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne).

Our CSO also oversees ESG goal setting, which requires collaboration across the business with teams such as fleet, network, finance, corporate real estate and supply chain. For example, in 2022 our CSO collaborated with our VP of Implementation, Provisioning, & Optimization to approve our expanded commitment to renewable energy investments - supporting the production of nearly 2.8 billion kwh of renewable energy.

Our SVP of Engineering and Operations has responsibility for the resilience of our network, including energy and water use, and oversees the management of climate-related impacts to our operations. This includes our commitments to renewable energy, network disaster response and business continuity planning, as well as implementation and adoption of tools. Climate-related solutions include CCAT, which helps us identify climate-related risks to our infrastructure and operations up to 30 years in the future. We’ve made the rich climate datasets powering our tools available to the public via the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR) so others can assess their vulnerability and build resilience. By sharing the cutting edge climate modeling, we hope to spur action and innovation to help communities better understand and address the long-term impacts of climate change locally.

Our SVP of Audit Services, as well as our Chief Compliance Officer, oversee the integration of ESG issues, including environmental and climate-related impacts, into corporate enterprise risk assessment activities and audit functions. This includes analysis of ESG risks and disclosures, and associated processes, controls and assurance. This risk analysis has further oversight by the Audit Committee.

Our CSR Governance Council (Council) is led by our CSO and is comprised of more than a dozen officers representing business operations and management functions aligned to our most important ESG focus areas, such as climate change, emissions and use of energy and water resources. In addition to ad hoc meetings, the Council held three regularly scheduled meetings in 2022 discussing environmental topics such as, but not limited to, business-affecting climate transition, long-range goal setting and ESG reporting.

As a direct report to the CSO, the Assistant Vice President (AVP) of Global Environmental Sustainability oversees internal management of AT&T’s climate-related strategy and leads our Environment Committee, comprised of senior business leaders from across the company. In addition, AT&T’s Global Environmental Sustainability team, also led by our AVP of Global Environmental Sustainability, tracks climate-related developments within and outside AT&T and communicates the most relevant issues to the CSO. The team works closely with business unit experts throughout our company to implement and enhance programs and policies addressing climate-related risks and opportunities for AT&T.

AT&T’s Environmental Policy explains how we measure and manage our approach to the impacts of climate change. We continually strive to help our customers be more sustainable, reduce our own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase resilience throughout our operations.

Our ESG reporting practice is led by a dedicated team within the CSR organization led by our CSO, with additional oversight by the GPC and Audit Committee. Our ESG disclosures are internally validated by our finance and audit teams and select environmental calculations – such as energy use and GHG emissions – are externally assured by an independent third party.

Climate-related Ties to Leadership Compensation

In addition, demonstrated progress toward and achievement of goals related to climate-related issues (such as our approved science-based carbon reduction targets and our 2035 carbon-neutral goal) are part of the annual performance objectives for our CSO, AVP of Global Environmental Sustainability and other senior leaders across our business. Our VP of Global Infrastructure Implementation, Provisioning and Optimization – who has responsibility for our energy management team – has financial energy-saving targets which also support our sustainability efforts. Performance toward such goals is taken into account when these individuals’ supervisors determine annual merit salary increases and bonus awards.

For more information, see our 2023 Proxy StatementClimate Change & Greenhouse Gas Emissions issue brief and our CDP Response (question C1.2, C1.2a and C1.3a).

Strategy

Disclosure Response

Describe the climate-related risks and opportunities the company has identified over the short, medium, and long term.

To help us better understand how AT&T is positioned to respond to climate change, we use scenario analysis aligned with TCFD recommendations to assess the potential impacts and magnitude of climate-related risks and opportunities on our operations, including physical risk from acute and chronic climatic changes that could impact our network infrastructure; our products and services; and our brand, including extreme weather events, precipitation, drought, and changes in mean temperatures. AT&T also assesses transition-related risks along the four TCFD categories of market, technology, policy & legal, and reputation. Examples of these include the impact of environmental regulations, developments in technology and market or reputational factors on our company. As climate-related risks are identified or considered, they are analyzed through our company-wide internal risk management processes, in collaboration with business units such as compliance, finance, legal, public policy and others. For the climate scenario analysis, we interviewed and engaged a diverse group of stakeholders across business units in a series of workshops to provide input and feedback regarding potential business impacts and risk response strategies.

In this process, AT&T used two climate scenarios informed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) as well as two International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook (WEO) scenarios. Specifically, the following climate scenarios were used to consider potential climate futures:

  • High Carbon Scenario: IPCC Shared Socio-Economic Pathway (SSP2-4.5); IEA WEO Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS)
  • Low Carbon Scenario: IPCC Shared Socio-Economic Pathway (SSP1-2.6); IEA WEO Announced Pledges Scenario (APS)

 

The Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) shows the trajectory implied by today’s existing climate and energy-related policy settings, while the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS) assumes that all aspirational climate related targets announced by governments are met on time and in full, including their long‐term net zero and energy access goals. The latter scenario reflects efforts to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. These scenarios were aligned by matching the projected increase in mean temperatures globally.

Comparing the input from internal stakeholders and historical company metrics to the above customized climate scenario, AT&T was able to prioritize the climate-relate risks and opportunities most significant to the company. These climate risks and opportunities were further analyzed along three-time horizons identified by AT&T: short (present-2025); medium (2025-2030); long (2030-2050).

TCFD inset table

For more information, see our CDP Response (questions C2.1a and C2.3b).

Describe the impact of climate-related risks and opportunities on the company’s businesses, strategy, and financial planning

Based on the top climate-related risks and opportunities identified, AT&T worked with a third party to further prioritize and quantify 1 physical and 1 transition risk below based on high-cost areas of focus (i.e., severe weather and energy-related expenses) and strategic priorities.

Transition Risks

Risk type: Policy and legal, market risk

  • Changing environmental policies and market
  • Current and emerging regulations
  • Carbon pricing mechanisms

Description: Regulatory risks related to policies that increase in the price of GHG emissions, such as through a fuel or carbon tax or other pricing mechanism, may marginally drive up the price of fossil fuel-based energy and increase our operating costs. AT&T relies in part on fossil fuel-based resources for our fleet and to provide backup power for our network. We also purchase a significant amount of electricity to power our network and general operations. While we are working to increase the amount of renewable electricity in our portfolio, we still rely on the grid and non-renewable sources to fulfill our energy needs.

Likelihood: More likely than not

Time Horizon: Medium-term, Long-term

Impact on AT&T’s business: Medium-low

Management Response / Actions: Effective energy management directly impacts a company’s bottom line and is an important environmental consideration. Reducing our energy usage helps us mitigate risks associated with changes in energy prices, and we have active energy management efforts underway.

In 2022, we invested over $118 million to implement nearly 7,000 energy efficiency and reduction projects that will drive annual energy savings of 1,680 MWh and gross annualized energy cost savings of $144 million. We also performed 41 proof of concept energy trials to test new ideas for scalable energy savings efforts and programs. Two of these trial concepts have moved to broader implementation and 18 are still active in the trial phase. Between 2015 and 2022, we implemented nearly 161,000 energy efficiency projects, such as the ongoing integration of our EBMS across our footprint and decommissioning obsolete portions of our network operations—resulting in 7,053,000 MWh of annual energy savings and annualized energy cost savings of approximately $663 million. Our large-scale renewable energy projects delivered more than 2.8 million renewable energy credits to help offset our greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of this total, more than $61 million of this investment pertained to real estate decommissioning projects (consolidating and eliminating facility square footage); more than $42 million was invested in network projects, including decommissioning, process optimization and smart controls initiatives; more than $14 million was invested to upgrade and repair building infrastructure and systems.

Through our founding membership in the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), we support the CLC’s plan that envisions a rising fee on carbon emissions, rebating revenues as dividends to all Americans, a border-adjustment mechanism and regulatory simplification. The CLC works to promote a carbon dividends plan as a bipartisan, market-based solution to help reduce U.S. emissions.


Physical Risks

Risk type: Acute

  • Acute Physical Increases in the Severity and Frequency of Extreme Weather Events

Description: Extreme weather events precipitated by long-term climate change have the potential to directly damage network facilities or disrupt our ability to build and maintain portions of our network and could potentially disrupt suppliers’ ability to provide products and services required to provide reliable network coverage. Extreme weather events such as the highly active tropical storm season along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts and, and the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires across the Western U.S., have the potential to directly damage our network facilities or disrupt our ability to maintain portions of our network. In 2021, Hurricane Ida caused substantial impacts to our network in Louisiana from power outages and storm damage. As of Q1 2023, our network includes more than 1.4 million route miles of fiber globally and carries over 600 petabytes of data traffic on an average business day. Any such disruption could delay network deployment plans, interrupt service for our customers, increase our costs and have a negative effect on our operating results. The potential physical effects of climate change, such as increased frequency and severity of storms, floods, fires and other climate related events, could adversely affect our operations, infrastructure and financial results. Operational impacts resulting from the potential physical effects of climate change, such as damage to our network infrastructure (e.g., cell towers, central offices or other physical assets), could result in increased costs and loss of revenue. We could incur significant costs to improve the climate resiliency of our infrastructure - including proactively relocating equipment or implementing network hardening solutions - and otherwise prepare for, respond to, and mitigate such physical effects of climate change.

It is important to note that although, in both the low carbon and high carbon scenarios, the frequency and magnitude of these extreme events are likely to significantly increase, it is difficult to precisely estimate the impacts on AT&T’s business. Many additional factors outside of AT&T’s control could reduce or magnify the potential impacts, including local land-use, statewide climate policy, and the hyper-localized impacts of many climate events.

Likelihood: More likely than not

Time Horizon: Short-term, Medium-term, Long-term

Impact on AT&T’s business: Medium

Management Response / Actions: Our network team builds all cell sites to meet or exceed state structural standards— including those in disaster prone areas. We conduct regular analysis to help ensure cell sites can withstand wind, ice & other environmental factors. We also deploy high-capacity battery backup to these sites, allowing them to remain in service in the event of a power loss. To prepare for natural disasters, we regularly test these batteries & take steps to ensure fixed generators are fueled on a regular basis. We proactively monitor potential nature-related threats to our network, employees and communities through our Weather Operations Center. Through our Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) organization we have run nearly 80 full-scale in-field recovery exercises, which are vital to testing our equipment & abilities. We have invested >$650 million in our NDR programs since 1992. 90% of the investment is spent on domestic NDR programs, and the remaining 10% is spent on international NDR initiatives. The investments include capital expenditures (such as building new mobile satellite cell sites on light trucks) as well as other expenditures such as field training exercises. To better understand the physical risks that climate change poses to our network, we’ve been working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne performs the data engineering and climate modelling, under the RCP 8.5 warming scenario, that projects the impact and likelihood of various hazards occurring. This dataset is sophisticated, as it provides insights at the neighborhood level and looks out to 30 years into the future. Leveraging these data layers, our data scientists built our Climate Change Analysis Tool (CCAT) which helps us anticipate and visualize potential impacts of climate hazards, like flooding and intense winds, on our network infrastructure & operations. This information can be used to mitigate physical risk, for example, it can inform for asset maintenance efforts, network hardening projects, disaster recovery resourcing and future network investments. In 2020, we expanded the capabilities and the geographical coverage of our CCAT tool to incorporate drought, wildfire and temperature rise for the contiguous 48 states, which we’re integrating into our internal planning systems. Our internal climate resilience team continues to use CCAT to analyze the potential impact of the hazards on our infrastructure and then relay these insights to key business unit partners like network resiliency.

For more information, see our CDP Response (questions C2.3a and C2.4a).

Describe the resilience of the company’s strategy, taking into consideration different climate-related scenarios, including a 2 deg Celsius or lower scenario

AT&T evaluated the company’s resilience under commonly used third-party 2-2.7°C scenarios in line with TCFD recommendations to ensure cross-comparability with other companies. Our analysis considered several AT&T-specific and low-carbon economic factors that may impact operating expenses and future investments, such as electricity growth and prices, renewable portfolio standards, carbon prices, and changes in climate-related patterns and weather events.

During the TCFD climate scenario analysis, AT&T engaged internal stakeholders throughout the process to understand how climate risks and opportunities are thought about across business units. An interactive workshop was conducted to assess how stakeholders understand the risk drivers, impacts, mitigation measures, and responses to the top physical and transitional risks. Participants learned about the complexities of climate risk and worked collaboratively to identify areas for improved internal coordination to reduce risk and seize opportunities in our changing climate.

As a result of the TCFD analysis results, AT&T will increase engagement with key internal and external stakeholders to explore additional mitigation measures to reduce impact from the top identified risks and scale the impact of top identified opportunities. For example, to address identified transition risks around future energy needs, AT&T will continue to monitor market prices and requirements around renewable energy market mechanisms and assess opportunities to scale these mitigation measures. To address identified physical risks, the environmental sustainability team will continue to help integrate climate modeling into network resiliency programs.

Finally, AT&T will continue to build awareness around key climate risks & opportunities, review emerging climate-related issues that have the potential to impact the business and work to improve data collection processes and management (including key data sources and evidence used in the scenario analysis).

For more information, see our CDP Response (questions C3.2 and C3.2a).

Risk Management

Disclosure Response
Describe the company’s processes for identifying and assessing climate-related risks

In 2022, AT&T hired a third-party consultant to help facilitate and conduct the climate risk assessment and scenario analysis aligned with the TCFD recommendations. This process engaged internal stakeholders across multiple business units in the company to gather insight on past, present, and future climate-related risks and opportunities to the company. Participants included environmental sustainability, enterprise risk management, climate resiliency, finance, public policy, energy, legal, and strategy. This group’s insight and analysis of the company’s operations, strategy, and products/services served as input into creating a longlist of climate-related risks and opportunities likely to be relevant to AT&T’s business.

Next, a mix of quantitative and qualitative data was used to assess each risk or opportunity within a Climate Vulnerability framework, including metrics to rate each on AT&T's exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Climate data provided by the IPCC was used to model the likely exposure of AT&T’s facilities and operations to physical risks, including precipitation, extreme heat, mean temperature rise, wind speeds, and drought. For transition risks and opportunities, exposure scores were developed by utilizing company data on emissions, energy usage, and market analysis, among others. The sensitivity and adaptive capacity scores were qualitatively determined through a survey of internal stakeholders across the business. These results were used to prioritize the top risks and opportunities likely to present the largest financial, strategic, and environmental impact to the company.

The prioritized risks and opportunities were further analyzed in an interactive, tabletop workshop with the stakeholders to explore risk mitigation and resilience efforts. Some of the prioritized risks and opportunities were further quantified for their potential financial impact on the company.

To calculate the financial impact for physical climate risks, AT&T used IPCC climate data along two climate scenarios out to 2100. AT&T included over 250,000 assets across AT&T's mobility, wireline, and retail portfolio as part of this analysis. These sites were selected to ensure global geospatial diversity. In the future, AT&T will look to use higher resolution climate data to improve accuracy of financial risk quantification.

Transitional risks and opportunities were calculated based on historical energy consumption patterns, future climate scenario projections (e.g., IEA), forecasts on U.S. state renewable energy portfolio requirements, and globally accredited research articles from professional organizations, thinktanks, NGOs, and academia.

For more information, see our CDP Response (questions C2.2).

Describe the company’s strategy for managing climate-related risks

We proactively monitor potential nature-related threats to our network, employees and communities through our AT&T Weather Operations Center.

Our network team builds all cell sites to meet or exceed local structural standards—including those in disaster prone areas. We conduct regular analysis to help ensure cell sites can withstand wind, ice & other environmental factors. We also deploy high-capacity battery backup to these sites, helping maintain service in the event of a power loss. To prepare for natural disasters, we regularly test on-site batteries & take steps to ensure fixed generators are fueled on a regular basis.

We have invested more than $650 million in our Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) Program, which exists to rapidly restore communications to areas affected by disasters. We are committed to on-the-ground testing and have dedicated 160,000 working hours to full-scale NDR recovery exercises in the field, which test the preparedness of our equipment and abilities.

To help us plan, build and maintain our network in the face of extreme weather and long-term climate change, in 2019 we developed our Climate Change Analysis Tool (CCAT). By analyzing the modeled climate data under the RCP 8.5 warming scenario and physical risk implications of the future climate, our industry-leading CCAT helps network engineers understand how inland and coastal flooding, drought, wind or wildfires may impact existing infrastructure or future network builds – up to 30 years into the future. Since 2022, we’ve assessed over 3K central offices using Argonne flood data to factor changing climate conditions into our network resiliency program. An enhancement we made, driven by feedback from our business unit partners, was to make the projections more actionable and create a simplified risk score (1-10 scale) for key climate hazards. AT&T’s mobility planning tool integrates these risk scores so that when a designer considers location options for a new piece of mobility equipment, physical climate risks can be factored into the decision. This allows AT&T the opportunity to proactively build sites with lower risk and cost, reduce downtime due to disasters and harden our network for the future. The implementation of climate data into decision-making frameworks and workflows ultimately helps to create climate-resilient infrastructure and a climate-informed workforce.

We’ve made our climate data available to the public, and in 2022, AT&T, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory debuted the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR). The portal provides AT&T and Argonne’s high-resolution data about localized future climate risks in an accessible format to state, local, tribal and territorial emergency managers and other community leaders.

AT&T’s purpose is to create connection – supported by an expansive network woven into communities across the world. AT&T’s business is focused on working to make sure the social and economic benefits of broadband connectivity are available to everyone. Our network is tested by climate-related weather events and natural disasters every year, which is why it is important we ensure AT&T’s network is resilient in the face of climate-related risks. Keeping our network and operations up and running is critical for the millions of people who rely on the connectivity we provide.

AT&T explores both mitigation and adaptation strategies when considering climate change risks. To help identify and assess climate-related risk to our operations, we use the AT&T Climate Change Analysis Tool (CCAT) on an ongoing basis.

We’re incorporating climate data in our model to drive prioritization of work and investment to improve network resiliency. As an example, we have assets called Mobile Telephone Switching Offices (MTSOs), which contain many critical network elements. These are high-priority sites for AT&T and are spread across the country. By integrating coastal storm surge and flood data from Argonne into our vulnerability modeling for these sites, we can make better decisions about which sites should be priority-one hardening investments.

In hurricane-prone areas, like the Southeast, we’re planning to make investments in new generators, rectifiers and batteries, maintain critical electrical equipment like HVACs, install flood gates and upgrade switchgear equipment. Also, once a location has been approved for enhancements, the construction and engineering teams can make more informed decisions about how to protect the site.

For more information, see our CDP Response (questions C2.2, C2.3a, C2.4a).

Describe how processes for identifying, assessing, and managing climate-related risks are integrated into the company’s overall risk management

Management is responsible for assessing and managing our exposures to risk on a day-to-day basis, including the creation of appropriate risk management policies and procedures. Our SVP of Audit Services, as well as our Chief Compliance Officer, oversee the integration of ESG issues, including environmental and climate-related impacts, into corporate enterprise risk assessment activities and audit functions. This includes analysis of ESG risks and disclosures, and associated processes, controls and assurance. The Chief Compliance Officer and the SVP of Audit Services each meet with the Audit Committee four times per year. Our Chief Compliance Office conducts formal risk assessments annually, focusing on significant compliance areas that could present a significant risk to the company from a reputational, operational or financial perspective. In addition, the compliance risk assessment process evaluates compliance in certain high-risk areas for inclusion in the program. The CCO leadership team and legal support review each risk assessment and communicate the results and action plans to business unit leadership.

Management also is responsible for informing the Board of our most significant risks and our plans for managing those risks, as well as for disclosing our material risks in our periodic reports.

Our CSR Governance Council (Council) is led by our CSO and is comprised of more than a dozen officers representing each of our operating companies and departments with responsibility for business operations aligned to our most important ESG focus areas, such as climate change, emissions and use of energy and water resources. The Council meets three to four times per year and collaborates across a broad range of initiatives, competencies and perspectives. In addition to the Council, we convene 5 core issue committees led by senior CSR management – including a committee focused on environmental issues, led by our AVP of Global Environmental Sustainability, a direct report to our CSO. Members of our Global Environmental Sustainability team monitor internal and external climate-related developments and work closely with business unit experts to implement and enhance programs and policies addressing climate-related risks and opportunities for AT&T. Members of our ESG Strategy team coordinate with the Compliance team to help further integrate results from the 2022/2023 climate risk scenario-analysis into the broader risk management framework and to inform long-term strategy.

The Board is responsible for overseeing our policies and procedures for assessing and managing risk over the short-, medium - and long-term. Annually, the Board reviews the Company’s strategic business plans, which includes – but not limited to - evaluating environmental risks associated with these plans. In addition, under its charter, the Audit Committee reviews and discusses with management the Company’s significant financial, compliance, ethics, and operational risk exposures and the steps management has taken to detect, monitor and control such exposures, including the Company’s risk assessment and risk management policies.

For more information, see our 2023 Proxy StatementClimate Change & Greenhouse Gas Emissions issue brief and our CDP Response (questions C2.1 and C2.2).

Metrics & Targets

Disclosure Response
Disclose the metrics used by the company to assess climate-related risks and opportunities in line with its strategy and risk management process

AT&T actively tracks our Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions and reports these metrics annually, including a rolling 5-year view to highlight trends in performance. Scope 1 emissions include direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by the company (such as our fleet). AT&T reports all emissions data containing Scope 2 (indirect) emissions using the market-based Scope 2 calculation method, in accordance with the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance, unless otherwise specified. Scope 3 emissions are calculated using an EPA-developed, spend-based Environmentally-Extended Input-Output (EEIO) methodology.

For more information, see our Climate Change & Greenhouse Gas Emissions issue brief and our CDP Response (questions C4.1a-c and C4.2a-c).

Disclose scope 1, scope 2, and if appropriate, scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the related risks GHG footprint chart

For more information, see our Climate Change & Greenhouse Gas Emissions issue brief, ESG Data table and our CDP Response (questions C6.1, C6.3 and C6.5).

Describe the targets used by the company to manage climate-related risks and opportunities and performance against targets

Climate-related goals support our business strategy to pursue efficiency projects that save millions of dollars across our operations each year. By deploying IoT solutions to streamline key business processes, transitioning to a low-emissions fleet, scaling our renewable energy capacity, and working to virtualize large portions of our network, we’re able to deploy new capabilities faster while reducing energy use and emissions. An overview of climate-related metrics and targets are available below. For a comprehensive summary of environmental metrics, see our 2022 Sustainability Summary and ESG Data table.

Carbon Neutral Commitment
  • Achieve carbon neutrality (net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions1) by 2035.
    • Progress: 2022 Scope 1 and 2 emissions were approximately 4.8 million MT of CO2e.2 This represents a reduction of more than 4 million MT from our 2015 base year (approximately 8.8 million MT of CO2e)—more than 45%1 attainment toward our net zero target.
Science-based Targets
  • Reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions1 63% by 2030 (2015 baseline) – aligning with a 1.5°C pathway.
    • Progress: Between 2015 and 2022, we have reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions more than 45% - 71% attainment toward our 2030 science-based target.
  • Work to ensure 50% of our suppliers (covering purchased goods and services, capital goods and downstream leased assets as a portion of spend) set their own science-based Scope 1 and Scope 2 targets by 2024.
    • Progress: In 2022, we met this science-based target two years ahead of schedule, with 53% of our suppliers by spend having set their own science-based Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions reduction targets.
Gigaton Goal
  • Deliver connectivity solutions that enable business customers to cumulatively save a gigaton (1 billion MT) of GHG emissions from 2018 through 2035. This goal will measure emissions reductions enabled by a set of Smart Climate Solutions from 2018—2035 and progress will be reported annually.
    • Progress: Between 2018 and 2022, AT&T identified 24 Smart Carbon Solutions for which we have calculated emissions reductions. Use of these solutions has enabled emissions reductions of 149.2 million MT of CO2e—approximately 15% of our Gigaton Goal.3

For more information, see our Climate Strategy & Transition PlanClimate Change & Greenhouse Gas Emissions issue brief and our CDP Response (questions C4.1a-c and C4.2a-c).

Last Updated: 8/9/2023

 

  1. Scope 1 emissions include direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by the company (such as the fleet). Scope 2 emissions include indirect emissions that result from the generation of purchased energy.
  2. Data (2018–2022) is rounded and inclusive of all AT&T operations (U.S. and international). Starting in 2022, data does not include DIRECTV, Vrio, Xandr or WarnerMedia.
  3. Data does not include DIRECTV or Vrio.