Water Management

Water is important to our business, and water supply challenges can have a significant impact on how we operate. We have a responsibility to actively manage and reduce our water use wherever possible.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Water is important to the communities where we operate and to our own operations. The network that forms the core of our communications business requires a controlled and cooled environment. Water is often a critical input to the cooling equipment we use, creating a link between our water and energy use. The majority of our total domestic water consumption is used at locations where the water usage helps maintain the controlled and cooled environment required by our communications network.⁶ As AT&T implements continued energy efficiency measures, these initiatives will also help reduce water consumption.

Governance

The Governance and Policy Committee (GPC) of the AT&T Board of Directors has oversight over all Corporate Responsibility and ESG issues, including environmental sustainability and the management of company water use. The Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) reports to the board committee several times a year to provide updates and receive input on the direction of sustainability-related work at AT&T.

We provide information about water use and efficiency projects to AT&T’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Governance Council, composed of senior executives and officers responsible for the business areas most linked to current CSR priorities. This council is led by our CSO, who works with the GPC to achieve a wide range of specific, sustainable business objectives. Our President of Network Engineering and Operations has responsibility for the resilience of our network and real estate assets, 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. The Vice President – Implementation, Provisioning & Optimization within the Network Engineering & Operations (NEO) organization leads the team that oversees the efforts listed below.

Since our water consumption is closely tied with energy use, many of our efforts support both water and energy efficiency. The following teams manage AT&T’s network resource optimization, network capacity engineering, in-network operational support, and energy and water management efforts, as well as their associated budgets.

• The Energy Team oversees a broad range of energy and water programs, including deregulated purchase strategies, regulated rate optimization, authorship of corporate energy and infrastructure policy directives, and development and implementation of scaled energy efficiency and energy conservation measures.
• The NEO team optimizes our network by identifying opportunities for energy-efficient designs and components that result in energy and water consumption reductions. This team also optimizes our networks by identifying opportunities for asset decommission, including managing how we release and power down our legacy data platforms, legacy regional equipment and end-office switching equipment. By right-sizing network assets, we lower our energy demands.

Water Goal

Approximately 51% of our water consumption occurs in areas designated as high or extremely high water stressed environments.⁶ For example, we identified Los Angeles, El Paso and San Antonio as high water stress areas and currently have 92 sites located in these areas. AT&T has established a goal to reduce domestic water consumption in high and extremely high water stressed areas by 15% by 2030, compared to a 2019 base year. Progress is ongoing, and we are currently reviewing historical water consumption data to ensure its quality. We will report on progress towards our water goal after we confirm water consumption data accuracy.

Our Operations

The vast majority of AT&T sites are fed by municipal water sources, with fewer than 0.03% of AT&T sites drawing water from wells. AT&T sites fed by municipal water sources are metered for total volume of water withdrawal, while well water consumption is not tracked. We do not withdraw from brackish or saltwater sources.

We conducted our first water footprint assessment in 2010. Analysis shows that our water use is concentrated in a small number of facilities located in high or extremely high water stressed areas. Our top 126 water-consuming facilities constitute approximately 51% of our overall water consumption.⁶

The AT&T Water Scorecard, modeled after our Energy Scorecard, tracks water use at our facilities and helps identify water-saving opportunities using a grading system. We use the scorecard to evaluate water risk on an annual basis.

Through our Water Scorecards, we evaluated our top 126 water-consuming sites in high or extremely high water stressed areas across the U.S. Cooling towers, which use evaporation to begin the mechanical cooling cycle, are a significant opportunity for water savings and financial return. These pieces of equipment, which help chill large buildings, account for a considerable amount of a building’s daily water use, especially in electronics-laden buildings such as central offices and data centers.

Water Conservation Efforts

We’ve consolidated or reduced our owned or leased building space, resulting in water reduction of 267 million gallons since 2013.⁶

AT&T’s continuing efforts to reduce water consumption also include cleaning cooling towers and enhancing proactive maintenance and repairs, as well as utilizing smart irrigation systems. In 2021, we cleaned 8 cooling towers, which saved 4,198 gallons. Regular cleaning results in more efficient water use, prolongs equipment life and reduces harmful pathogens. We also provide connectivity for monitoring systems to enable remote, real-time tracking and management of water use. We use these solutions in our own operations and work with customers to enable them to do the same.

We work with HydroPoint, a smart water management solutions provider, to remotely monitor and manage irrigation systems in real time. With products that retrofit existing systems, HydroPoint offers a cost-effective solution that reduces water consumption an average of 40%. In 2017, AT&T installed HydroPoint solutions at key facilities. And in 2021, we saved 74 million gallons of water at 133 locations through this program.

In 2021, AT&T deployed an Energy & Building Management System (EBMS) to support energy and water efficiency at 53 additional facilities for a total of 1,030 sites deployed. Leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data principles, our EBMS is designed to help property management personnel ensure facility equipment is operating optimally. This initiative minimizes mechanical cooling needs and reduces water consumption.

We incorporated water conservation strategies into our Dallas, Texas headquarters Discovery District, including a smart irrigation and rainwater collection system. Additionally, our headquarters building has a water harvesting system, which collects condensate from our air conditioning systems. This water is then filtered and stored in tanks to use for irrigation. In 2021, this water harvesting system saved over 664,700 gallons of water. These water savings efforts helped the district earn SITES’ Silver Certification, which recognizes sustainable and resilient land development projects.

Supply Chain

Any water-related risk that impacts our suppliers’ operations has the potential to affect our future business operations. We use the third-party Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Sustainability Assessor tool to help suppliers launch and expand programs to efficiently use water and other resources. For more information on all our efforts with suppliers, please see our Responsible Supply Chain issue brief.