Green America, a non-profit focused on mobilizing businesses to solve environmental problems, has released their Wireless Scorecard, which measures clean energy usage and reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions within the wireless industry. For the second year in a row, T-Mobile has come out ahead. The un-carrier was given the highest grades among the top four telecoms – an A and B – on the Green America Wireless Scorecard.
The telecom sector uses enormous amounts of energy each year. So, in 2017, Green America launched a campaign that urges telecom companies in the U.S. to set a goal of reaching 100% renewable energy by 2025.
This year T-Mobile took home high marks in the two areas Green American scores:
1. Green Energy Usage: Grade B
T-Mobile is contracted for enough green energy to meet nearly 60% of its RE100 commitment on a 2016 base year (see more on that below!). This includes deals with two wind farms – the Red Dirt Wind Project in Oklahoma (signed in 2017 and fully operational) and the Solomon Forks Wind Project in Kansas (set to open later this year) – which combined will provide more than 320 megawatts of green energy to T-Mobile, enabling the company to increase efficiencies and power its operations across the country, including retail stores, call centers and network operations.
2. Green Energy Commitments: Grade A
A key factor for T-Mobile’s high mark in the green energy commitments category is its pledge to use100% renewable energy by 2021 through membership in RE100. The Un-carrier is the only major U.S. telecom in the RE100 bunch.
“T-Mobile is all in to do our part to protect the environment on behalf of the communities we serve,” said Janice Kapner, EVP of Communications and Community Engagement at T-Mobile. “As we keep driving forward, we’re also going to continue doing what T-Mobile does best – pushing the wireless industry to keep up.”
Another reason for the high mark: the company’s carbon reduction goals have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The SBTi helps companies align with what the latest climate science says is needed to help reduce catastrophic climate change, and keep the global temperature increase below 2° Celsius. SBTi approval is based on a company’s commitment to set reduction goals to keeping global temperature down across scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
T-Mobile says it aims to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 95% and reduce scope 3 emissions per customer by 15% below 2016 levels by 2025.
Filed Under: News
