Verizon Communications

Verizon publicly committed in 2019 to source 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2025. The company announced in early 2025 that it had reached 100% renewable electricity equivalents for US operations a year ahead of its updated 2030 target, primarily via renewable energy certificate (REC) purchases and direct power purchase agreements. Critics noted heavy REC reliance reduces emissions less than direct PPAs.

On April 29, 2024 the Federal Communications Commission announced a $46.9 million fine against Verizon as part of a $200M+ joint enforcement action against the four largest US wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint) for selling customer real-time location data to third-party aggregators including data brokers, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters without meaningful customer consent. The enforcement followed years of investigation triggered by 2018 reporting by Motherboard and Senator Wyden.

On March 12, 2024 Verizon disclosed a breach affecting approximately 63,000 employees - roughly half of the company's workforce - in which an unauthorized Verizon employee accessed a file containing personal information including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and union affiliation between September 2023 and the September 2023 discovery. The breach was disclosed approximately six months after discovery.

Reporting in November 2023 by Senator Wyden's office and follow-ups by Wired and AP confirmed Verizon's continued participation in the federal 'Hemisphere' phone records program, providing call metadata records that the DEA could query without a warrant. The program, which had existed since 2007, surfaced trillions of records over its lifetime. Verizon initially declined to confirm participation; the disclosure followed years of records-request litigation.