GreenUp will be divided into multiple activities in Puerto Rico, which was severely impacted by two hurricanes last September and is still struggling with its recovery and restoration efforts. The events are part of the airline’s 100x35JetBlue hurricane recovery initiative, launched shortly after Hurricane Maria.
Among the airline’s initiatives for Puerto Rico throughout Earth Month are a helping maintain a lettuce farm in the town of Ciales whose production was cut in half since the hurricane, as well as tree-nursery maintenance with Puerto Rican nonprofit “Para la Naturaleza,” which will plant one million trees on the island in the next five years.
The campaign also includes environmentally minded events in New York, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, Los Angeles and Orlando to bring together customers, employees and members of the community to interact with nonprofits nominated by JetBlue’s crewmembers.
Of these eco-oriented causes and charities, one winner will be selected by customers for each category–climate change, conservation, urban development and wildlife. Each of these four winners will receive $15,000 to develop their projects.
Customers who participate in the voting process automatically enter to win roundtrip flights, “with carbon offsets,” for two “anywhere JetBlue flies.” Voting will be available until April 30 at jetblueforgood.com/GreenUp/.
In addition to the events, the airline announced an investment in renewable jet fuel and fuel-efficient practices and technologies to offset nearly two billion pounds of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions.
“Environmental and social responsibility are important to our long-term success,” Icema Gibbs, JetBlue’s director of corporate social responsibility, said in a release. “As an airline and a business, we’re investing in innovative new technologies and processes that will lessen our CO2 footprint. In our personal lives, there are many small steps we can also take, like offsetting emissions from flying.”
Customers have the option to offset emissions of their flights by visiting carbonfund.org/partners/jetblue/.
Read more at Caribbeanbusiness.com