Water Management

Water supply and quality problems are threatening access to clean water around the planet. Not only can responsibly managing water use promote human well-being, it also supports biodiversity, as well as the economic health of communities. 

The majority of our total domestic water consumption is used to maintain the cooled and controlled environment required for our communications network. We are working to find ways to use less water through energy efficiency and other efforts and to return water to our communities through recycling.

For more information, see our Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures Report.

We are working to reduce our water usage and protect community water supplies in several ways. Among the ongoing efforts we continued in 2023:

• Improving the energy efficiency of our operations to require less water cooling and implementing better tracking and evaluation of our water usage to support better decision-making.   
• Water recycling activities to reduce environmental impact.

Governance

The following groups are involved in managing our company’s water use:

• Governance & Policy Committee (GPC): The GPC of the AT&T Board of Directors has oversight over all Corporate Responsibility issues, including the management of company water use. The Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) reports to the GPC several times per year to provide updates and receive input on the direction of sustainability-related work at AT&T.
• Corporate Responsibility (CR) Governance Council: The CR Governance Council is composed of senior executives and officers responsible for the business areas most closely linked to our current corporate responsibility priorities and is led by our CSO. The council is given updates about our water use and efficiency projects. 
• Senior Vice President of Engineering & Operations (E&O): The Senior Vice President of E&O has responsibility for the resilience of our network, including energy and water use, and oversees the management of climate-related impacts to our operations. 
• Vice President of Implementation, Provisioning & Optimization: Located within the E&O organization, the Vice President of Implementation, Provisioning & Optimization leads the Energy Management Team that oversees water and energy governance.
• Energy Management Team: Our Energy Management Team helps measure AT&T’s energy efficiency and supports actions to improve it. Because our water consumption is closely tied to energy use, the team also works with the Property Management team on their water management efforts. For more information, please visit our Energy Management issue brief.
• Property Management Team: This team directly oversees water management through general building maintenance, equipment upgrades, and consumption and use performance reporting.

Our Operations

Most AT&T sites are fed by municipal water sources, with less than 1% of them drawing water from wells in 2023. These sites are metered for total volume of water withdrawal. We do not withdraw from brackish or saltwater sources. We track our water use through the following efforts:

• Water Footprint Assessment: We have conducted company-wide water footprint assessments since 2010. Analysis shows that only a small percentage of our water use is in high or extremely high water-stressed areas. In 2023, facilities located in these areas constituted approximately 18% of our overall domestic water consumption.  
• Water Scorecard: In 2010, AT&T introduced a water scorecard process that tracks water use at 250 facilities that are in high or extremely high drought areas. The scorecards use a grading system to help identify the highest water-consuming facilities and to indicate water-saving opportunities on an annual basis.

Water Conservation

Ongoing efforts to manage our water usage include:

• Facility Maintenance: We work to manage water consumption in our facilities by cleaning cooling towers, enhancing proactive maintenance and repairs, utilizing smart irrigation systems, and providing connectivity for monitoring systems to enable remote, real-time water use tracking and management. We use these solutions in our operations and work with customers to enable them to do the same. We also continue to look for ways to consolidate or reduce our leased building space to reduce water and energy demands. 
• Energy & Building Management System (EBMS): Leveraging Internet of Things and data science principles, our EBMS minimizes cooling needs and manages water consumption by helping property management personnel ensure facility equipment is operating optimally. In 2023, we continued integrating EBMS across our footprint and completed deployment at more than 14 facilities.
• Cooling Towers: Cooling towers, which use evaporation to begin the mechanical cooling cycle, are an opportunity for water savings and financial return. Traditional building cooling systems account for a considerable amount of a building’s daily water use, especially in electronics-laden buildings such as central offices and data centers. AT&T identifies opportunities to implement cooling towers during each location’s preventive maintenance activities.
• Proof of Concept Project/Cooling Towers: In 2023, we completed an ElectroCell technology installation that is projected to deliver a 33% reduction in maintenance requirement, a 10% reduction in energy based on thermo transfer efficiency, and a reduction of nearly $20,000 in water costs. In total, the equipment is projected to deliver more than $75,000 in energy savings within the year. This technology will be reviewed for installation at additional facilities. 
• Smart Irrigation: We continue to use the HydroPoint smart water management solution at key facilities to remotely monitor and manage irrigation systems, saving more than 49.4 million gallons of water in 2023.
• Water Recycling: The water reclamation system at our Dallas headquarters recycled 426,626 gallons of cooling water in 2023. The system collects condensation from our air conditioning systems, which is then filtered and used for irrigation. Through this water harvesting system, we have recycled over 1.4 million gallons of water since installation in 2021. 

We are committed to managing our water consumption. In 2024 and beyond, we will continue to seek water conservation opportunities and deploy pilot projects to determine viable options for reducing our water usage.