American Tower's 2023 Sustainability Initiatives: Key Insights

Overview of 2023 Sustainability Initiatives

American Tower's 2023 sustainability initiatives included opening 144 new Digital Communities, serving over 720,000 people across 15 countries, and awarding over 450,000 training course certificates. The company also released a comprehensive sustainability executive report detailing progress in environmental, social, and governance areas.

"Opened 144 new Digital Communities, raising the total to more than 580, serving over 720,000 people across 15 countries with more than 450,000 training course certificates awarded since inception For more information on American Tower's sustainability program and to view the Company's 2023 Sustainability Executive Report and accompanying indices and supplements, please visit the "Sustainability" portion of the Company's website at www.americantower.com/sustainability." --- (AMT, press release, 2024/07/18)

"American Tower Corporation (NYSE:AMT) today announced the release of its 2023 sustainability executive report and accompanying indices and supplements, which outline the Company's sustainability strategy and provide a comprehensive overview of the progress made across the three pillars of its program—Environment, Social and Governance." --- (AMT, press release, 2024/07/18)

Governance Practices Supporting Sustainability

American Tower's governance practices supporting sustainability include maintaining director limits, investing in data quality and governance, enabling special shareholder meetings to ensure accountability, and globalizing best practices to drive efficiencies. These measures collectively enhance operational integrity and shareholder engagement, fostering a sustainable governance framework.

"So we would take the shareholder vote very seriously and this is a purely governance provision that allows us to keep the number of directors within our governance limit. There are no other questions." --- (AMT, event transcript, 2024/05/22)

"Elsewhere in our services segment, we've combined investments in data quality and governance with the development of internal data platforms to improve our overall service offerings and asset integrity." --- (AMT, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"Since a special shareholder meeting can be useful in replacing a director, this proposal may be an incentive for the AMT directors to improve their performance and in turn improve shareholder value. Calling a special shareholder meeting is hardly ever used by shareholders, but the main point of the right to call a special shareholder meeting is that it gives shareholders a plan B option if management is not interested in good faith shareholder engagement." --- (AMT, event transcript, 2024/05/22)

"And then there is an opportunity that we're focused on to more globalize the business, and that's taking best practices from each market in terms of what their expertise is, and taking that to other markets to see if we can drive additional efficiencies there." --- (AMT, earning call, 2024/Q1)

Partnerships and Collaborations for Sustainability

American Tower is leveraging partnerships and collaborations to enhance sustainability by bringing private capital into CoreSite, working with various partners on ecosystem development, and seeding investments in multiple markets to build sustainable ecosystems and future investment opportunities.

"We have a lot of flexibility in terms of how much CapEx we put in. And when we brought private capital into CoreSite as one of our partners, part of that was giving us more optionality in terms of how we fund And so we have the option to invest American Tower Capital or we can rely on our capital partners to invest more if we don't want to put as much in." --- (AMT, conference, 2024/05/20)

"And we are still working with various partners on the ecosystem to figure out how does Edge develop, how do we capitalize on it, etcetera." --- (AMT, conference, 2024/06/05)

"So it's not going to move the needle today. But if we can find 3, 4, 5 markets where we can seed a little bit of money in there and start building that ecosystem And then a couple of those work that will give us new investment opportunities for the next decade." --- (AMT, conference, 2024/05/20)

Challenges and Solutions in Sustainability Efforts

American Tower faces uncertainty in its sustainability efforts but focuses on maintaining a strong balance sheet and driving AFFO growth. Key strategies include prioritizing asset quality, operational excellence, and long-term value creation to ensure sustainable performance across network investment cycles.

"There is still a fair amount of uncertainty there, and we're going to be prudent in making sure our balance sheet is strong and that we are managing the business effectively to drive AFFO growth." --- (AMT, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"We applaud GM's efforts to integrate sustainability into its operations and supply chain." --- (GM, event transcript, 2024/06/04)

"In particular, we believe that our focus on asset quality, operational excellence, and contract structures, all through the prism of long-term value creation, have been the most critical factors in determining our ability to monetize growth in mobile data consumption, and our ability to drive leading performance on our assets over multiple network investment cycles." --- (AMT, earning call, 2024/Q1)

Future Sustainability Goals and Plans

American Tower aims to enhance sustainability by exploring co-location opportunities and constructing new sites. Additionally, they plan to evaluate their global portfolio to ensure alignment with original underwriting criteria, ensuring long-term sustainability and operational efficiency.

"I said, we're starting to have probably more productive conversations around co location and meet maybe even the opportunity for constructing new sites in the future." --- (AMT, conference, 2024/05/15)

"And we know we can't achieve our goals alone. Addressing plastic waste and recycling challenges requires the collaboration across industry, the public sector and civil society." --- (KO, event transcript, 2024/05/01)

"But as we look at our portfolio kind of across the globe, our goal is to figure out if there are businesses that are not meeting our original underwriting criteria." --- (AMT, earning call, 2024/Q1)