T-Mobile – Adnan Taher Tambawala – 2017

Goals

Having experienced significant network growth in the past few years, one of America’s leading wireless carriers, T-mobile, was interested in curbing greenhouse gas emission in its supply chain and identifying suitable project sites for on-site solar installations. EDF Climate Corps fellow Adnan Tambawala was brought on board to develop an action plan for quantifying the company’s upstream scope 3 emissions and create a renewable project business plan for installing on-site solar at data centers and warehouses. 

Solutions

Working with T-Mobile’s top suppliers, Tambawala collected GHG data and identified critical parameters and sources of GHG emissions in the supply chain. Following the analysis, he created a framework to calculate the life cycle analysis (LCA) of each product. He too recommended integrating service into the T-Mobile Responsible Sourcing Policy and future RFPs initiated by the company’s procurement team. 

Tambawala sought out potential partners to promote technological development, construction, operation and maintenance of on-site solar power plants for T-Mobile’s data centers and warehouses. A Request for Information proposal for on-site solar was sent to numerous solar developers for four different locations. A solar financial model was also developed indicating IRR, NPV, payback and CO2e emissions avoided for each project.

Potential Impact

Tambawala’s recommendations will lay the foundation for T-Mobile to track its upstream Scope 3 emissions and provide a comprehensive analysis of the negative and positive impacts of the company’s product life cycle. The on-site solar installations at T-Mobile’s facilities will reduce the company’s carbon footprint and generate favorable cost savings. Moving forward, T-Mobile is one step closer to narrowing its dependence on fossil fuels, improving security of fuel supply and reducing GHG emissions.