Disney Pledges $7m to Help Save Environment

Eight months after it pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy projects, the Walt Disney Company has now announced its intention to invest millions of dollars into US, Amazonian and DR Congo-based forest-replenishing, reforestation programmes.  This is a move tied in with its aim of lowering emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and cutting down on energy consumption and waste levels.

In all, Disney will inject $7m – an amount that few other standalone companies have pledged in environmental preservation terms.  According to Conservation International’s chairman/ chief executive Peter Seligmann, the money will both help slow down the pace of climate change, and help people and animals who reside in these parts of the world have a better life.  The investment will be made in collaboration with a number of conservation organisations including Conservation International, along with the Conservation Fund and the Nature Conservancy.

Disney: Environmental Projects

The timing of the Disney environmental projects investment coincides with the build-up to a key climate change meeting to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in little over one month’s time.  Here, representatives from nations around the world will attempt to forge a new global climate change strategy to replace the 12-year-old Kyoto Protocol. 

Specifically, the money will be fed into the following areas:

• DR Congo’s Tayna and Kisimba-Ikobo Community Reserves
• Peru’s Alta Mayo conservation programme
• Multiple reforestation programmes in the US, including in the Mississippi Delta

In March 2009, Disney said it would reduce fuel-based CO2 emissions by 50 per cent over a three-year period.  The measure represents part of a longer-term emissions reduction strategy, through which Disney intends to become a zero-emissions organisation in due course.  The entertainment firm is also working towards reducing landfill waste – of which 300,000 tons was created in 2006 – down to nothing, and lower its electricity use to 90 per cent of what was consumed in 2006 by 2013.
 
“This commitment by Disney represents the largest single corporate contribution ever made to reduce emissions from deforestation and will help build confidence in these activities that generate such compelling climate, local community and biodiversity benefits”, Mr Seligmann stated in a press release issued in conjunction with this news.

“In addition, as climate talks gain momentum in the US and abroad, Disney’s leadership points the way to the key role tropical forest conservation must play in emerging climate change policies”, he added.