AT&T Appoints First Chief Sustainability Officer

Published 05-14-09

Submitted by AT&T Inc.

DALLAS, May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T^* today announced the appointment of Charlene Lake as senior vice president public affairs and chief sustainability officer. In this capacity, Lake will lead AT&T's efforts to achieve a wide range of specific, sustainable business objectives, working with the Public Policy Committee of the Board of Directors, the Chairman's office, and AT&T’s executive management team to further integrate sustainable business practices across AT&T and its supply chain.

"Our appointment of a chief sustainability officer reflects our commitment to our long-term future and the communities where we live and work," said Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T Inc.

AT&T has taken a number of steps in the last 18 months to strengthen its commitment to sustainable business practices and operations, including:

Establishing accountability with the AT&T Board of Directors. At the end of 2007, AT&T changed the charter of its Public Policy Committee of the Board of Directors to establish clear oversight in the area of citizenship and sustainability.
Creating a cross-functional steering committee made up of senior executives and officers from across AT&T to better integrate sustainability into its business operations.
Launching AT&T Aspire, a $100 million philanthropic program to help strengthen student success and workforce readiness and begin impacting the labor pool for all businesses.
Making tangible commitments to environmental stewardship, such as an investment commitment of up to $565 million to deploy more than 15,000 fuel vehicles over the next 10 years, as well as additional investments to support the use of wind and solar power for facilities in California and Texas, and energy-saving software for 310,000 desktop computers across domestic operations.

AT&T also is building on its history of collaborating with industry groups and government to develop new approaches to measuring and improving energy efficiency. These include:

Working with The Green Grid, a global consortium, to advance energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.
Assisting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the development of a new ENERGY STAR rating for data center infrastructure.
Collaborating through the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), a global organization of ICT companies, to improve the sustainability impact of the ICT industry. With GeSI, AT&T helped launch the U.S. Addendum to the "SMART 2020" report, which found that ICT-enabled solutions could cut annual emissions in the U.S. by 13-22 percent by 2020.

A Kansas native, Lake began her career at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1986 in Topeka, Kan., and served in management roles in financial communications, media relations and employee communications in Kansas, Missouri and Texas. Lake took over the leadership of SBC Communication's corporate advertising and sports marketing department during the mid-90s, and managed the organizations through the mergers of Pacific Bell, Southern New England Telephone and Ameritech. She then became responsible for leading the public affairs unit, and after the AT&T merger, she assumed AT&T's philanthropic and volunteerism initiatives. In 2008, Lake was tapped to lead the development of AT&T's centralized corporate citizenship and sustainability function.

For more information about AT&T's sustainability efforts, please visit www.att.com/sustainability.

^*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies, are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. Among their offerings are the world's most advanced IP-based business communications services, the nation's fastest 3G network and the best wireless coverage worldwide, and the nation's leading high speed Internet access and voice services. In domestic markets, AT&T is known for the directory publishing and advertising sales leadership of its Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators in such fields as communications equipment. As part of their three-screen integration strategy, AT&T operating companies are expanding their TV entertainment offerings. In 2009, AT&T again ranked No. 1 in the telecommunications industry on FORTUNE(R) magazine's list of the World's Most Admired Companies. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com.

(C) 2009 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

AT&T Appoints First Chief Sustainability Officer

AT&T Appoints First Chief Sustainability Officer

AT&T Inc.

AT&T Inc.

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