Engaging Our Suppliers for a More Sustainable Supply Chain Since 2008

By Stephen Bernard, Senior Sustainability Manager at AT&T

To fully understand a company’s economic, environmental and social impact, one needs to understand the impact of its supply chain. AT&T’s supply chain is a large ecosystem that presents opportunities for streamlining operations, reducing environmental impacts and influencing positive social change. We believe we can take advantage of these opportunities while also mitigating long term costs.

Each year AT&T spends tens of billions of dollars with its suppliers. Through AT&T’s Supply Chain Sustainability program, we let our suppliers know about our sustainability objectives and ask that they participate in our annual Supplier Sustainability Survey. This helps us determine if we are meeting our goals.

Our sixth annual survey has gone to several hundred of our suppliers and consists of three parts: Completing the AT&T supplier sustainability survey; Responding to the 2014 CDP supply chain information request; and Creating or updating Ecodesk profiles, all of which are incredibly helpful tools in evaluating the impact of our supply chain on our environment, on our bottom line and on society in general.

Because citizenship and sustainability are at the core of AT&T’s business,  we have established principles and set goals for our supply chain. You can view the principles by clicking on AT&T Principles of Conduct for Suppliers, and view the goals in AT&T’s sustainability report by clicking on Engaging Our Supply Chain. We can’t reach these goals without the participation of our suppliers.

AT&T employees from across the company work every day to make a positive impact on our local communities and global environment, but we cannot do it alone. It is through collaboration with our suppliers that we anticipate delivering even more positive change.

If you’re interested in learning more about our sustainability initiatives in the supply chain and at AT&T, please visit People | Planet | Possibilities.