Verizon Is Added to NASDAQ Sustainability Index

Verizon has been added to the NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability Index, thanks to our commitments to sustainability reporting and our results in greening our business operations. The index -- which serves as a benchmark for stocks of companies that are taking a leadership role in sustainability reporting -- is re-ranked twice a year, with companies added and removed depending on the results.

As the operator of one of the largest global communications networks in the world, Verizon has a significant opportunity to not only make the world a better place through our technologies, but also through our corporate citizenship and environmental responsibility.

Our biggest environmental impact -- and area of focus -- is the energy it takes to power our networks, which accounts for more than 90 percent of our carbon emissions.

That is because keeping people connected around the world requires billions of kilowatts of electricity a year to power our global networks. To make a significant positive impact on the environment, we are working to reduce our carbon intensity, which is the amount of carbon emissions we produce to move a single terabyte of data across our network.

From 2009 to 2013 we reduced our carbon intensity by roughly 40 percent, and aim to cut it in half by 2020 (against our 2009 baseline). We’ve done this through data center improvements, copper-to-fiber migrations, green energy investments, building improvements and fleet operations.

“Sustainability matters to our customers, employees and the communities in which we operate,” said James Gowen, chief sustainability officer at Verizon. “With the size of our network, fleet and real estate portfolio, we’re in a natural position to take a leadership role in environmental responsibility, and we realize that is what’s best for our business and the planet.”

Over the last few years, we’ve installed solar and fuel cell energy sources to help power Verizon facilities, have made our buildings smarter and certified more than 200 of them in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program, and have earned ENERGY STAR status certification in over 170 of our retail stores.

We’ve also improved the efficiency of our fleet by reducing dispatches, and using telematics to be more efficient when we do send vehicles out on the road. The efforts have been a success: In 2014 we consumed 34.3 million gallons of gas, which was 25 percent less than our fuel consumption in 2010 (45.2 million).

Learn more about Verizon’s strides in sustainability, and follow our green news online @VerizonGreen.