The telecommunications sector is growing fast as demand for faster networks and greener operations rises. Telecom giants like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are competing for market share while also racing toward their net-zero and sustainability goals. They are facing pressure to balance business growth with environmental responsibility.
This article looks at each company’s financial results for Q1 2025. It also highlights their progress towards net-zero and their efforts to reduce environmental impact.
Verizon: Strong Financials and Focused Sustainability Goals
Financial Highlights:
- Revenue: $33.5 billion (1.5% increase year-over-year)
- Net Income: $5.0 billion (up from $4.7 billion in Q1 2024)
- Adjusted earnings: $12.6 billion (4% year-over-year growth)
- Wireless Service Revenue: $20.8 billion (2.7% increase year-over-year)
Steady Revenue Growth and Operational Efficiency
Verizon posted a solid financial performance in Q1 2025, with revenues of $33.5 billion, marking a 1.5% year-over-year growth. This growth came mainly from the wireless segment. Wireless service revenue grew by 2.7%, hitting $20.8 billion.
The company’s net income also grew to $5.0 billion, compared to $4.7 billion in Q1 2024, reflecting a steady increase in profitability. Verizon’s adjusted earnings hit $12.6 billion. This is a 4% rise from last year. It shows how well the company controls costs and runs operations efficiently.
Verizon continues to show growth in its wireless business, with notable increases in its total customer base. The company focuses on 5G technology. Its strong position in the U.S. wireless market sets it up for more revenue growth.
The telecom’s strong finances let it reinvest in its infrastructure, innovation, and sustainability efforts.
Scaling Up Renewable Energy and Emission Reductions
Verizon aims for net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. This goal matches the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The company has already made significant strides in reducing its carbon footprint.
By the end of 2023, Verizon had reduced its Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 44% and its Scope 3 emissions by 20% compared to a 2019 baseline. These cuts come from Verizon’s energy efficiency programs. They also result from investments in renewable energy and efforts to engage the supply chain.
Verizon’s renewable energy commitments are particularly ambitious. The company has signed 28 renewable energy purchase agreements (REPAs). These agreements will provide about 3.6 gigawatts of expected generating capacity.
Verizon’s renewable energy target aims for 50% of its energy consumption to be sourced from renewable sources by 2025 and 100% by 2030.
The telecom giant’s energy-saving efforts have modernized data centers and network systems. Since 2018, this has helped avoid over 93 million metric tons of CO₂e.
The company supports its efforts by focusing on sustainable products. It also helps industries use renewable energy. Other major sustainability and net-zero initiatives of this telecom titan include:
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Green Bond Financing: Verizon was the first U.S. telecom company to issue green bonds, raising $6 billion to fund renewable energy projects, energy efficiency improvements, and other sustainability initiatives.
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E-Waste Recycling and Circular Economy: In 2023, Verizon reused or recycled nearly 47 million pounds of electronic waste, including 1.3 million pounds of plastic and 1.9 million pounds of lead-acid batteries. The company strives to divert 100% of e-waste from landfills through reuse and responsible recycling.
- Tree Planting Initiative: As part of its environmental stewardship, Verizon has committed to planting 20 million trees worldwide by 2030.
AT&T: Robust Financials and Growing Sustainability Efforts
Financial Performance:
- Revenue: $30.63 billion (2% increase year-over-year)
- Net Income: $4.7 billion (up from $3.39 billion in Q1 2024)
- Adjusted earnings: $11.5 billion (4.4% year-over-year growth)
Gains in Wireless and Fiber Performance
AT&T showed strong financial results for Q1 2025, with total revenues reaching $30.63 billion, a 2% increase year-over-year. This growth was driven by the success of its wireless and fiber broadband offerings.
Postpaid phone net additions hit 324,000. Fiber subscriber additions reached 261,000, which shows strong customer demand. The company’s net income for the quarter was $4.7 billion, up from $3.39 billion in the same period last year, indicating improved profitability. AT&T’s adjusted earnings also saw a healthy increase of 4.4% year-over-year, reaching $11.5 billion.
AT&T’s growth in fiber and wireless customers shows it can grow its market share. This happens even in a tough, competitive market. The company continues to focus on broadband and 5G growth as key drivers of its future performance.
AT&T aims to keep its momentum going. Its investments in 5G, fiber optics, and upgrading the network should help boost financial growth in the next few quarters.
Targeting Carbon Neutrality with Supplier and Customer Engagement
AT&T’s commitment to sustainability is evident in its goal to achieve carbon neutrality across its global operations by 2035. To date, the company has reduced its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by nearly 52% from a 2015 baseline.
- AT&T’s science-based targets aim to reduce these emissions by 63% by 2030.
The company aims for 50% of its suppliers to set science-based GHG reduction targets by 2024. By the end of 2023, 55% of them had already done this.
AT&T’s renewable energy efforts have been a critical component of its sustainability strategy. As of 2023, the company sourced 25.7% of its electricity from renewable energy, up from 20% in the previous year.
The telecom titan has made great strides in its Connected Climate Initiative. This program helps business customers lower their carbon footprint. This initiative has helped avoid 227.2 million metric tons of CO₂e by the end of 2024 (or 38.9 million metric tons of CO₂e for that year). The long-term goal is to cut 1 gigaton (or 1 billion metric tons) of CO₂e by 2035.
AT&T is also investing in sustainable products and services. This includes energy-efficient data centers and energy-saving solutions for customers.
In 2024, AT&T agreed to purchase carbon dioxide removal credits from 1PointFive, the carbon capture unit of Occidental Petroleum. These credits will come from 1PointFive’s Stratos direct air capture facility. The plant could capture up to 500,000 metric tons of CO₂ annually when operational.
The telecom giant also has the following net-zero efforts:
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Energy Efficiency and Network Optimization: The company drives operational and network energy efficiencies by updating systems and decommissioning obsolete assets to reduce annual energy consumption.
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Low-Carbon Fleet Transition: AT&T aims to reduce fleet emissions by at least 76% by 2035, investing in electric vehicles (EVs) and the necessary infrastructure to support them.
T-Mobile: Impressive Financials and Industry-Leading ESG Initiatives
Financial Results:
- Revenue: $20.89 billion (6.6% increase year-over-year)
- Net Income: $3.0 billion (24% increase year-over-year)
- Adjusted earnings: $8.26 billion (up from $7.65 billion in Q1 2024)
Leads in Revenue Growth and Customer Additions
T-Mobile is doing well financially. For Q1 2025, they reported revenues of $20.89 billion. This is a 6.6% rise compared to last year. Net income surged 24%, reaching $3.0 billion, driven by strong operational performance.
The company also saw a 29% increase in earnings per share (EPS), which reached $2.58 for the quarter. T-Mobile added 495,000 postpaid phone customers, further bolstering its market position.
The company’s adjusted earnings were $8.26 billion, up from $7.65 billion in Q1 2024. This shows its strong financial health and skill in managing costs while also investing in growth.
T-Mobile’s success comes from its strong leadership in wireless. It focuses on growing its 5G network. The company can attract and keep customers, especially in postpaid and fiber broadband, which helps it succeed in the tough U.S. market.
Setting Industry Pace with Bold Net-Zero and Green Energy Goals
T-Mobile aims high with its ESG goal. It plans to reach net-zero emissions for its entire carbon footprint by 2040. This target, validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), reflects the company’s serious commitment to reducing its environmental impact.
As of 2023, T-Mobile has reduced its total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 30% compared to 2020 levels. This includes sourcing 100% of its electricity from renewable energy, a milestone it has maintained since 2021.
T-Mobile has also made significant strides in improving energy efficiency. For example, the company has reduced its energy consumption per petabyte of data by 62% since 2019.
T-Mobile has started a big effort to collect and recycle old devices. By 2023, they recovered 10 million devices for reuse, resale, or recycling. T-Mobile invests in big wind and solar projects. These help the company reach its clean energy goals.
The telecom company also employs these initiatives to boost its net-zero journey:
- Network Optimization: Decommissioned tens of thousands of macro cell sites resulting from the integration of the Sprint network and retired legacy technologies to reduce energy consumption.
- Energy-Efficient Technologies: Replaced traditional air conditioning units at cell sites with direct air-cooling systems and implemented software features to optimize energy use based on network traffic demands.
- Collaborative Commitments: Signed The Climate Pledge, joining a global initiative to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, and participates in RE100 and the EPA Green Power Partnership to promote renewable energy adoption.
Telecom’s Net-Zero Race: Who Steals the Show?
Verizon leads in revenue and net income. But in terms of ESG and net-zero commitments, T-Mobile is clearly leading, with its 2040 net-zero target and aggressive renewable energy goals. This includes sourcing 100% of its electricity from renewable sources.
Verizon follows closely, with a 2050 net-zero target and substantial progress in reducing its carbon emissions. AT&T has made progress in cutting Scope 1 and 2 emissions. However, it falls short in renewable energy use at 25.7%. In contrast, Verizon is at 34.4%, and T-Mobile leads with 100%.
Verizon and AT&T have ambitious strategies. However, T-Mobile stands out because it focuses on energy efficiency, device recycling, and renewable energy investments. Its complete approach and strong focus on cutting its carbon footprint give it an edge in measurable ESG progress.
The telecommunications industry’s major players are making notable strides in balancing financial performance with environmental responsibility. T-Mobile emerges as a leader in sustainability, while Verizon and AT&T continue to strengthen their ESG efforts.
As the telecom industry evolves, these three companies’ net-zero and sustainability commitments will play a crucial role in shaping corporate responsibility and environmental success.
- FURTHER READING: How To Reduce Scope 3 Emissions: Key Strategies That Work
The post Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile: Who Wins the Financial and Net Zero Race? appeared first on Carbon Credits.
The accounting differences that decide whether your nature investment shows up in inventory, in BVCM, or nowhere at all.
The question reaches a procurement team about three weeks before the next sustainability committee meeting. Someone has read about insetting. Someone else has just signed off on an offset purchase. The CSO wants to know if the two are interchangeable. The answer is no, and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard is the reason why.
This article walks through what each term means at audit-grade specificity, what the standards actually say about how each gets counted, and how to decide which tool fits which target. The insetting vs offsetting question is one of the most-searched in corporate climate strategy, and one of the most poorly answered. By the end of this piece, you should be able to brief a committee on the difference without notes.
The two definitions, in plain English
Offsetting means buying carbon credits generated outside your value chain and retiring them against your residual emissions. The reduction happens somewhere else, financed by you, and the credit is the receipt.
Insetting means investing in emission reductions or removals inside your own value chain, typically with suppliers, where the reduction is directly linked to the products and services you buy. The reduction happens inside the boundary of your Scope 3 inventory, and the accounting treatment is fundamentally different.
The shorthand from the University of Oxford’s Nature-based Insetting Initiative is useful: insetting is what you do with the supply chain you have; offsetting is what you do with the supply chain you do not have.
What the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard actually says
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, finalised in 2024 after a multi-year pilot, sets the rules for how land-based emission reductions and removals enter corporate inventories. The Standard distinguishes between inventory accounting (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and project or intervention accounting (a separate methodology for crediting).
For insetting, the practical implication is that supplier-level interventions, when properly measured and attributed, can reduce your Scope 3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions in your inventory. The reduction is not a credit retired against the inventory; it is a lower inventory number, period.
For offsetting, the credit is retired separately. It can be reported as a contribution toward a net-zero claim under the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework or as part of a VCMI Carbon Integrity claim, but it does not lower the inventory number.
A practical consequence: if your Science Based Target requires a 50% absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, insetting moves you toward the target. Offsetting does not. This single point of difference reshapes the procurement decision.
When insetting counts toward Scope 3 (and when it does not)
Insetting counts toward Scope 3 only when several conditions are met:
- The intervention must occur with an entity in your value chain.
- The emissions reduction or removal must be measured against a defensible baseline.
- The reduction must be attributed to your share of that supplier’s output, not double-counted with other buyers.
- It must follow the inventory accounting rules in the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard, not the project accounting rules used to generate credits.
The most common failure mode is double counting. If your supplier sells the same reduction as a credit on the voluntary market and also reports it to you as a Scope 3 reduction, the math breaks. The Standard requires you to address this risk, typically by purchasing and retiring the supplier-issued credit as part of your inventory or by contractual provisions that prevent the supplier from selling the reduction twice.
When insetting does not count toward Scope 3: when the intervention sits with a supplier you do not buy from, when the baseline is not defensible, when the attribution is unclear, or when the documentation does not survive audit. Those cases default to Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, which is still useful but operates on a different ledger.
The procurement and supplier engagement question
Insetting is harder than offsetting. That is the unfashionable truth most buyers eventually confront. Offsetting is a transaction; insetting is a relationship.
To run an insetting program, you need supplier mapping precise enough to know which farms or facilities sit at which Scope 3 boundary. You need an engagement model that gets suppliers to participate, which usually requires multi-year commitments and shared economics. You need an MRV architecture that measures the right things and produces audit-ready documentation. And you need a contractual structure that prevents double counting and protects both sides.
The trade-off you receive in return is significant. Reductions count against your inventory rather than your residual. Supplier relationships deepen, which protects sourcing continuity. Yield and quality improvements often follow regenerative interventions, which reduces your input cost over time. And the regulatory file, under CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and the SBTi FLAG Guidance, is materially stronger.
Choosing the right tool for the right target
A practical decision rule. If your target is a science-based Scope 3 reduction and you operate in a FLAG sector or source FLAG commodities, insetting is the structurally correct tool. If your target is a net-zero claim that includes neutralising hard-to-abate residual emissions outside your value chain, BVCM via high-integrity offsets is the structurally correct tool. Most companies with material Scope 3 exposure need both, in different proportions, sequenced over time.
The sequencing matters. Insetting takes longer to stand up but produces a permanent reduction in the inventory. Offsetting can be transacted faster but does not change the inventory and now sits under tighter claim restrictions. Treat them as complementary tools with different jobs, not as substitutes. The Accountability Framework Initiative and the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions both provide useful guardrails for the insetting side, with biodiversity, human rights, and benefit-sharing requirements that go beyond carbon math.
If you are mapping a Scope 3 reduction roadmap and need to scope which interventions count toward your inventory versus which sit in Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you structure a nature-based supply chain investment program that fits your FLAG exposure, your target architecture, and your audit horizon. Schedule a consultation.
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