Delta Celebrates Earth Month by Matching Customer Carbon Offsets in April

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Apr 04, 2013, 10:00 ET

ATLANTA, April 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) is celebrating Earth Month by matching up to $25,000 of carbon offset contributions made by customers during April in partnership with The Nature Conservancy.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090202/DELTALOGO )

Delta's year-round carbon offset program allows customers to purchase and retire carbon offsets on delta.com to reduce the carbon dioxide associated with their travel. Retired offsets are tracked on Markit Environmental Registry.

Proceeds benefit The Nature Conservancy's Rio Bravo Project, which conserves tropical forest and wildlife habitat in northern Belize. Customers who purchase a ticket at delta.com have the option of contributing to the carbon offset program at $15 per metric ton. For example, to offset the 0.56 metric tons of CO₂ emitted for roundtrip travel between Atlanta and San Francisco, it would cost $8.44 per passenger. In the last twelve months, Delta and Delta customers have purchased 4,472 metric tons of carbon offsets.

"Delta is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with our operations," said Ken Hylander, senior vice president – Corporate Safety, Security and Compliance. "In addition to other initiatives, we've made a commitment to do our part to help offset carbon emissions by investing in the Conservancy's forest projects."

In 2007, Delta became the first airline to launch a carbon offset program. The Tensas River Basin Project in the Lower Mississippi River Valley was Delta's first project with TNC and allowed the reforestation of 406.3 acres, which over time will sequester a net total of 74,177 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Delta's carbon offset program is just one of the airline's efforts to affect positive environmental change. Other initiatives include:

Improving annual aircraft fuel efficiency by an average of 1.7 percent from 2009 to 2012, exceeding the International Air Transportation Association's fuel-efficiency goal of 1.5 percent annual improvement
Reducing annual aircraft greenhouse gas emissions by 8.4 million metric tons since 2005, an 18.5 percent reduction – Delta's greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 to 2011 have been third-party validated through The Climate Registry, a nonprofit organization with established standards for calculating, verifying and publicly reporting carbon footprints
Expanding its award-winning in-flight recycling program beyond the 29 cities currently equipped to participate – more than $131,000 is being donated this year to Habitat for Humanity and Delta's Employee and Retiree Care Fund for recycling rebates from 2012
Becoming the sole airline member of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions' Business Environmental Leadership Council, a group of mostly Fortune 500 companies working together to explore energy policies that make sense for business and the environment

Delta's annual Corporate Responsibility Report can be accessed online at delta.com/responsibility. The 2012 report is scheduled to be released later this month.

Delta Air Lines serves more than 160 million customers each year. Delta was named by Fortune magazine as the most admired airline worldwide in its 2013 World's Most Admired Companies airline industry list, topping the list for the second time in three years. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 313 destinations in 57 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs nearly 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 700 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry's leading trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights, with hubs in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City and Tokyo-Narita. Delta is investing more than $3 billion in airport facilities and global products, services and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Additional information is available on delta.com, Twitter @Delta, Google.com/+Delta and Facebook.com/delta.