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It is the policy of Qwest Communications to comply with all environmental laws, to make responsible environmental management a company priority and, where necessary, to establish detailed compliance plans that manage environmental risks in day-to-day operations. As part of our contractor requirements, before any work can begin in the communities in which we are located, an assessment of all potential environmentally sensitive areas, including protection of water, plants and wildlife, must be made. Environmental sustainability programs within Qwest are administered under the direction of the Senior Vice President of Risk Management and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer. This executive position reports to the CEO and frequently interacts with the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors.
Suppliers must comply with all applicable environmental, safety and health laws and regulations – foreign and domestic. Qwest supports suppliers who actively implement procedures to reduce waste and minimize the environmental impact of their products and services.
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is an independent, nonprofit organization which acts as an intermediary between shareholders and corporations on all climate change related issues, providing climate change data from the world’s largest corporations to institutional investors in the global market place.
Qwest’s participation in CDP, which began in 2006, is one important mechanism through which Qwest discloses its greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), primarily to the global investment community. The Climate Registry is a nonprofit organization that establishes consistent, transparent standards throughout North America for businesses and governments to calculate, verify and publicly report their carbon footprints in a single, unified registry.
Founding members are organizations that demonstrated environmental leadership by joining The Climate Registry prior to May 1, 2008, thereby supporting the Registry in its early formation. Qwest has developed a training program for its employees to identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption in the company’s data centers.
As an active member and contributor to the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), Qwest is working alongside other industry members to, among other things, identify and promote energy efficient technologies and equipment.
Qwest is also a member of the newly created ATIS Exploratory Green Group (EGG), aimed at developing recommendations and sharing best management practices in the area of environmental sustainability for the telecommunications industry. Qwest recently partnered with CURRENT Group LLC on a new framework that allows electric utilities to integrate intelligent grid sensing with Qwest’s existing low latency, secure, high capacity DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) network to implement Smart Grids like Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity™ in Boulder, Colo.
Qwest helps customers go green with products and services that use environmentally friendly architectures such as IP and Ethernet in order to, among other things:
- Enhance their product suites with long-distance collaboration, Web conferencing and mobility for secure remote access
- Optimize use of devices needed to operate a business (reducing costs and minimizing carbon footprints)
- Create virtual environments – collaboration ware, webcams
- Move to online billing, autopay and fax-to-email (reducing consumer paper waste)
- Minimize carbon footprints by reducing, in particular, air travel
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What efforts has your corporation taken to protect the water, plants and wildlife in the communities in which it is located?