AT&T caught the tail end of the green echo reverberating throughout the tech industry this week, announcing a new commitment to be carbon neutral across its entire global operations by 2035.

To get there, the company plans to focus on six targets. By virtualizing network functions the operator says it will eliminate areas of energy-intensive network equipment and in turn rely on low-cost, energy-efficient hardware. It’s transitioning to a low-emissions fleet, optimizing routes, switching to hybrid vehicles, and reducing the overall size with a goal of decarbonizing its fleet. And the operator said it will accelerate its energy efficiency and network optimization efforts; expand its efforts to drive sustainable feature film and TV production; support the renewable energy marketplace; and invest in carbon offsets. 

In addition to its mitigation commitment to reach carbon neutrality, AT&T is also stepping up its efforts to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change by expanding the scope of its Climate Change Analysis Tool (CCAT) tool to cover the entire contiguous U.S.

In 2019, the operator turned to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory for help in developing a Climate Change Resiliency Project to better understand, anticipate, prepare, and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

This led AT&T to develop the CCAT pilot, which combines Argonne National Laboratory’s regional climate modeling data with sophisticated mapping capabilities. CCAT modeling visualizes climate impacts on AT&T’s network and operations at the neighborhood level 30 years into the future. In its inaugural year, CCAT focused on the regional climate impacts in the southeast such as hurricanes and flooding.

“The tool goes beyond resilience for AT&T’s infrastructure,” the company writes in a blog post. "From the devastation of hurricanes like Harvey or Laura in the Southeast, to the wildfires that rage across the Western U.S., or the prolonged polar vortex that wilted crops in the Midwest earlier this year, every corner of the country is vulnerable to the effects of climate change."

To drive the sea of change even further, AT&T made the Argonne National Laboratory data publicly available so communities can take steps to better prepare and build climate resilience. 

“It is our hope that, in making this hyper-localized climate data publicly available and free to access, nonprofits, municipalities and companies will use it to plan and build resilience based on their own vulnerabilities,” the operator added.

AT&T began phase two of the project with the Climate Resiliency Community Challenge in February. Five universities in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina are working with local governments to help communities in the Southeast build resilience to climate change.

Appalachian State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Georgia, the University of Miami, and the University of South Florida were each awarded $50,000 to use the data from the operator's pilot to look at climate hazards. 

“Their initial work underscores what too many people across the country have already experienced firsthand: vulnerability to climate change is not evenly distributed. Instead, underserved communities tend to face the greatest dangers while having the least ability to cope with disasters,” the carrier noted. 

As with the pilot, AT&T said it will make the climate modeling data calculated by Argonne National Laboratory available to the public to use in their own climate risk analysis.

AT&T’s moves come at the end of what has been a steady flow of green announcements this week.

Google went all in on carbon-free energy, pledging to run all of its worldwide data centers and corporate campuses on 100% carbon-free power by 2030. The new pledge builds on the cloud giant’s  previous achievement of matching its energy use with 100% renewable energy by 2017.

Meanwhile, Microsoft retrieved Project Natick, its shipping container-size data center, from its two-year, 117-foot dive to a seafloor off Scotland’s Orkney Islands.

The European Commission today also raised its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions target to 55%.

The global mobile industry united earlier this year under industry trade group GSMA to take collaborative action in tackling climate change with the release of the Science-Based Target (SBT) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the telecommunications industry. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and 27 other mobile operators from around the world jumped on board with SBTs to reduce emissions trajectories for mobile, fixed, and data center operators; curb the risks and effects of climate change; and ultimately help companies reach the ambitious Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming.