Partnership Will Support the Planting of 12,000 Trees to Help Communities Achieve Economic and Environmental Sustainability
SAN DIEGO, CA (April 22, 2013) – In celebration of Earth Day 2013, PayItGreen®, an environmental initiative led by NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association, announced its partnership with Earth Day Network and The Canopy Project. The Canopy Project is a program of Earth Day Network that helps communities, especially the world’s most impoverished, achieve long-term economic and environmental sustainability through tree planting. The new partnership will enable the planting of 12,000 trees locally and across the globe.
"The widespread adoption of paperless billing has strong environmental impact while also saving money and improving efficiency; that's why NACHA and PayItGreen’s support of The Canopy Project makes so much sense, symbolically and practically,” said Kathryn Stoddard, VP of Corporate Development for Earth Day Network. “It illustrates how business and consumers can come together to create a more sustainable future.”
PayItGreen seeks to promote the environmental benefits of electronic payments, bills and statements to consumers and businesses. Every day, the financial industry uses natural resources in millions of non-electronic transactions – which have a tremendous impact on the environment. By switching just 20 percent of American households to electronic payments, bills and statements, the collective impact would prevent the production of 689,437,189 pounds of greenhouse gases, which is the equivalent of planting 8.7 million tree seedlings and allowing them to grow for 10 years.
“We are proud to partner with Earth Day Network to support its efforts to help preserve the environment and expand sustainability,” said Janet O. Estep, president & CEO of NACHA. “PayItGreen’s commitment to conserving natural resources through electronic payments, statements and billing aligns perfectly with Earth Day Network’s goal of preserving the environment. As such, this partnership was a natural fit.”
NACHA and PayItGreen’s partnership with Earth Day Network will be initiated later this year with a signature tree planting at a Washington, D.C. public school. The overall goal of the Washington D.C. tree planting is to enhance and improve a school property located in a disadvantaged community, to improve the quality of students’ outdoor experience in the schoolyard, and to educate students on becoming stewards of their environment. The partnership will also support tree plantings in Haiti, India and Uganda.
Over the past three years, The Canopy Project has planted over 1.5 million trees in 18 countries. In the US, projects to restore urban canopies have been completed in New York,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Flint, and Chicago. In Haiti alone, where earthquakes caused landslides on deforested hillsides, leading to horrific devastation, Earth Day Network planted 500,000 trees. In three high-poverty districts in central Uganda, The Canopy Project recently planted 350,000 trees to provide local farmers with food, fuel, fencing, and soil stability.
About Earth Day Network
Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN) works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world. To learn more, please visit www.earthday.org.
About PayItGreen
PayItGreen is a collaborative initiative led by NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association, to promote and educate the positive environmental impact of choosing electronic payments, bills, and statements over paper to consumers and businesses. In addition to offering a variety of resources and tools to assist businesses and consumers, PayItGreen also provides the PayItGreen Seal of Approval to help consumers identify businesses whose efforts align with these goals. To learn more, please visit the newly redesigned www.payitgreen.org.
About NACHA
NACHA manages the development, administration, and governance of the ACH Network, the backbone for the electronic movement of money and data. The ACH Network provides a safe, secure, and reliable network for direct account-to-account consumer, business, and government payments. Annually, it facilitates billions of Direct Deposit via ACH and Direct Payment via ACH transactions. Used by all types of financial institutions, the ACH Network is governed by the fair and equitable NACHA Operating Rules, which guide risk management and create payment certainty for all participants. As a not-for-profit association, NACHA represents more than 10,000 financial institutions via 17 regional payments associations and direct membership. Through its industry councils and forums, NACHA brings together payments system stakeholders to foster dialogue and innovation to strengthen the ACH Network. To learn more, please please visit www.nacha.org, www.electronicpayments.org, www.payitgreen.org, and direct.nacha.org.