At AT&T, we’re all about Environmental Sustainability. We are always evolving to build a more resilient network.

Hear from a few of our team members working on initiatives and applications to reduce emissions.

Agnes Malin

Global Enterprise Solutions – Retail

“All of us can make simple changes towards a more sustainable future with a cleaner, safer environment, starting with the things we do every day. Like mom always said, turn off the lights when you leave a room. Unplug what’s not in use. Ditch single-use plastics and bags. Drive less. Recycle and re-use. Reduce food waste.”

Agnes (Aggie) Malin, Retail Account Manager for Global Enterprise Industry Solutions at AT&T, drives employee engagement to support our environmental sustainability work. Aggie has been a long-time environmental champion, leading annual beach clean-ups for her colleagues in the Chicago area. She believes “everyone can do their part to help us move towards a cleaner, safer environment, starting with the things we do every day in our own communities.” Thanks to Aggie’s leadership, her team removed thousands of pieces of trash from the Chicago lakefront, and over 40 percent of that was plastics.

Roman Smith

Director – Global Environmental Sustainability

“One of the greatest challenges in the environmental space is changing behavior. Reducing waste at home and the office is the easiest way we can help reduce emissions.”

As Director – Global Environmental Sustainability at AT&T, Roman is responsible for integrating sustainable and climate resilient business practices throughout our operations. In his 25 years with AT&T, he has spent 13 years in Corporate Social Responsibility roles. Roman’s latest project, OSCAR., is a new AI technology that will help employees sort through their waste.

Nick Longo

Customer Service – Field Operations

“With a company that has a fleet as large as AT&T does, it only makes sense to put forth an effort to lower our emissions and do our part to reduce our carbon footprint.”

Nick was first given a prototype hybrid truck to test in 2015. While it was a good design, it wasn’t without its flaws. Fast forward to 2019, and the prototype truck was redesigned with an electric lift system using newly collected data. Nick continued to test the system for two years, which brings us to the all-new hybrid truck we have today.

The benefits over a traditional bucket truck? No more concerns over whether or not the generator will start in the winter like there is with gas-powered generators. Further, the hybrid system is quieter and requires no maintenance. Today’s hybrid model helps technicians do their work more efficiently and sustainably.

Nicolle Ho

Network Analytics

“As a data scientist, I can analyze our energy bills to identify sites with high energy use. I can also use climate change data to identify vulnerable sites during hurricanes and flood events, so we can keep our network running to the best of our ability.”

Nicolle is a data scientist who is optimizing our network through analysis. Through her work, she is helping improve network efficiency and resiliency to reduce emissions.

Alan Tolbert

Strategic Program Office

“There are many ways we can help save energy and reduce emissions. By decommissioning old equipment or leading small actions like turning off lights, we can all ‘do our bit’. I encourage everyone to contribute new ideas.”

As a product manager on the Save Energy Campaign, Alan Tolbert has a simple goal: reduce energy usage. Not so simple: scaling the project company wide. To aid in the mission of cutting energy usage and reducing emissions, Alan and his team devised this three-point plan:

  1. Do your bit. This is as simple as turning off the lights in an empty room. Anyone can chip in no matter how small the task may seem. Little steps add up.
  2. Decommission. The Save Energy Campaign is encouraging employees across the company to proactively turn off equipment that is no longer in use to save on emissions – it all adds up!  As an example, in a grass roots activity, AT&T Labs teams identified that the energy consumption in a given labs building was surprisingly high. They organized lab owners across the building to identify old equipment that could be turned off – reducing  energy usage equivalent to 512 average homes! After this success, the Save Energy team created a system for everyone in the company to report similar situations with incentive rewards.
  3. Collect Big Ideas. The effort to save energy is always evolving – and the Save Energy Campaign solicits and rewards promising ideas from employees across the company. It is equally important to find new ways to do business in sustainable ways. As an example, AT&T Inventive Scientists have created AI technology to enable capacity on cell sites to sleep at low traffic loads. In 2022, AT&T saved the equivalent annual power use of approximately 14,000 average homes by scaling out this cell site sleep technology.
Learn more about our sustainability efforts