President’s letter

At its core, our business connects people with each other and the world around them. Our technology powers connections that enable people, businesses and society to do amazing, groundbreaking things. That is an awesome power, and not something we take lightly. It’s why we’re committed to using our technology and our assets to help build a brighter future.

For example, our smart community and intelligent traffic solutions help people use resources more efficiently, making cities cleaner and more livable. And, we’re creating innovative solutions to make the food supply chain safer, to make healthcare more accessible and to harness the power of 5G to turn innovative ideas into reality. These growing areas of our business are delivering increasing value to our shareholders while making a significant contribution to society.

Every day, we provide meaningful work and benefits, including a diverse and inclusive work environment, to more than 155,000 employees. And every hour, we are diligent in safeguarding our customers’ privacy and data security. We manage our supply chain responsibly to ensure our business is not adversely impacting the environment or societal values of communities around the globe, and we are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, our 2022 goal is for our networks and solutions to save more than twice the amount of emissions that our operations create and by 2025, our goal is to reduce the carbon intensity of our operations (a measure of the overall carbon we emit divided by the data carried by our networks) by 50 percent from the 2016 baseline.

Through our community investment, we are addressing a very important societal challenge outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #4. Our society is on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As many as 77 percent of U.S. jobs in the year 2020 will require technology skills, according to experts. But millions of students lack access to technology and tech education in today’s schools, setting them up to be left behind in the digital economy. We are helping to provide underserved middle school students with the skills needed to put them on the path to success in an increasingly technology-dependent economy, with a goal to reach 6 million students by 2023.

Lately, the notion of corporate purpose has been a hot topic of discussion. But at Verizon, we have never wavered – we are committed to sharing our success with the world around us to make it better. I invite you to learn about the many actions we took in 2017 in pursuit of our mission to deliver the promise of the digital age.

Rose Stuckey Kirk
Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer & President,
Verizon Foundation

Note: this report does not include data associated with our Oath subsidiary unless otherwise noted.