Dec 3 2019
Mobile parking payment provider PayByPhone announces its partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects to help the NGO preserve the world’s rapidly disappearing forests. The not-for-profit organisation works directly with communities in developing countries suffering from extreme poverty resulting from deforestation.
Through the Green Christmas campaign, motorists can combat climate change simply by paying to park with PayByPhone. For every 100 mobile parking payment transactions PayByPhone process in December 2019, the company will plant one tree through Eden Reforestation Projects, with a target of 30,000 trees throughout the duration of the month-long campaign. The trees will be planted in mangrove projects in Madagascar as part of a programme that not only supports reforestation but also provides essentials to villagers such as medicines and food.
Jonny Combe, UK CEO of PayByPhone, says: “Our partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects means when drivers choose to pay for their parking via our cashless parking payment app instead of using cash in a parking machine, their parking experience is not only easier and more convenient, but also it helps a programme that supports the environment and provides people with a better quality of life.”
Dr Steve Fitch, Founder-CEO of Eden Reforestation Projects, said: “We’re delighted to work with PayByPhone to help our reforestation project in Madagascar. PayByPhone shares our ethos to create positive change through a genuine and effective environmental commitment. Our collaboration is particularly important for Madagascar where 90% of original forests have been destroyed, displacing entire animal species and taking away the Malagasy’s ability to farm and to live on the land, which is why this tree planting programme is so vital.”
Combe adds, “This is not just another well-meaning green initiative aimed at getting drivers to engage with environmental issues. Today, motorists want to travel in a more sustainable way, to choose services and to support initiatives that enable them to improve their own environmental impact, however large or small that may be. With this partnership, motorists can directly combat climate change just by going through their daily life. Planting trees will make an impact on the environment globally, and locally, helping the lives of many developing communities.”
The partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects is part of PayByPhone’s green business strategy where the environment is central to its everyday business decisions. In Spring 2019, PayByPhone achieved Carbon Neutral status and went on to launch Meters for Trees, the UK’s first carbon reduction programme of its kind, that enables UK councils to improve air quality through reducing carbon emissions. Throughout December 2019, in boroughs where Meters for Trees is implemented, PayByPhone will donate two trees for every 100 transactions to the Eden Reforestation Projects project in Madagascar.