NEW YORK, New York -- Underscoring its commitment to helping the environment, AT&T today announced the winners of its 2002 Champions of the Environment award, which recognizes employee-led projects that benefit their communities and workplaces. AT&T selected the winners with the assistance of The Institute for Conservation Leadership, a nonprofit environmental group.

The AT&T Champions of the Environment program, launched in 1995 on the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, recognizes employees for their outstanding work in two categories: community and workplace. Community projects benefit and take place in the community and include at least one AT&T employee on the team. Workplace projects benefit AT&T overall and involve creating cost savings for the company.

Each project is judged for its environmental theme or benefit and must have occurred within the past five years. Projects also must demonstrate innovativeness, replicability and program effectiveness.

Each winning team receives $1,000 from AT&T, which is donated to a nonprofit environmental group of their choice.

The six AT&T community project winners are:

-Lisa Chambers of Lavale, Md., who worked with Forest Ranger Randy Kemp and 13 students from Allegany High School in
-Cumberland, Md., to plant 125 trees to protect a stream from erosion;

-Sandy Munroe and Demos Punsalan of Pleasanton, Calif., for using an AT&T CARES day, a company-paid day to volunteer in the community, to help the San Jose-based California Technological Care warehouse, which inspects, refurbishes and disassembles donated computer equipment for computer learning centers to train underprivileged individuals;

-Sandra Cepparulo of Bedminster, N.J., and the Brunner School in Scotch Plains/Fanwood, N.J., for converting a barren piece of property into a garden that children can use for hands-on learning throughout the year;

-George Sullivan of San Luis Obispo, Calif., for his volunteer work with the Santa Margarita, Calif., Community Forestry organization, which helps to maintain the forest;

-John Connor of Middletown, N.J., and the Surfers Environmental Alliance in Sandy Hook, N.J., for protecting a beach from being destroyed by a beach fill project;

-Norma Wallace, Sharon DeMills, and other AT&T employees in San Francisco, Calif., for recycling paper that could be used by the City College Adult Education typing classes.

The 2002 workplace champions are:

-The AT&T Packet and Optical Network Services Engineering Telework and Virtual Office team for streamlining the process of setting up a virtual office, which resulted in 200 new teleworkers, reduced employees' daily commutes by 40 to 50 percent and decreased office space by more than 25 percent;
-The AT&T Power Subject Matter Expert team for outlining steps taken by AT&T to find efficiencies in its power systems, evaluate existing electricity usage to improve efficiency and work with electricity suppliers;
-The AT&T Local Network Services Engineering and Operations Telework team for developing online telework guidelines for job-function and employee-profile assessments;
-The AT&T Global Real Estate Energy team, along with Jersey Central Power and Light Company, for an energy-saving initiative that reduced usage of selected lighting, decreased usage of cafeteria and building air conditioning by using gas chillers instead of electric chillers, and turning off garage fans and pond fountains;
-The AT&T Charlotte Bill Print Center in N.C., for recycling 380 tons of paper and 230,000 pounds of cardboard, saving an estimated 6,460 trees, 175,940 gallons of oil and 2,642 gallons of water.

The 2002 Champions of the Environment winners and a summary of the winning projects are featured on the AT&T Environment, Health and Safety website at www.att.com/ehs/. The site includes additional information about AT&T's commitment to the environment, including the AT&T Environment, Health and Safety report.

About AT&T

AT&T (www.att.com) is among the world's premier voice, video and data communications companies, serving consumers, businesses and government. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company runs the largest, most sophisticated communications network and is the largest cable operator in the U.S. The company is a leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for the public and private sectors, and offers outsourcing, consulting and networking-integration to large businesses and government. Serving nearly 60 million consumers, AT&T is a market leader in consumer communications services and operates AT&T WorldNet® Service, a leading Internet access service that has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and customer service.

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