Disney Announces Long-Term Environmental Goals

The Walt Disney Company recently announced a significant set of strategic environmental goals in order to reduce its environmental impact. The goals are part of Disney’s 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report, which details their commitment to a wide range of issues from the environment to child safety.

The environmental goals include three- to five-year targets to reduce waste, emissions, electricity and fuel use and impact on water and ecosystems. The report includes the company’s first comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory, as well as goals to minimize product footprint’s and contribute to positive environmental action.

“Disney’s enhanced corporate responsibility efforts make our brands and products more attractive, strengthen our bonds with consumers, make the company a more desirable place to work and build goodwill in the communities we operate,” said Disney President and CEO Robert Iger.

The environmental goals outlined in the report include:

  • caption

    One of Disney's main goals is to "dispose of waste conscientiously and creatively by making 'reduce/reuse/recycle' the standard operating procedure." Photo: Canadianworldtraveller.com

    Zero waste initiatives

  • Minimize product footprints
  • Zero-net direct greenhouse gas emissions from fuels
  • Reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity consumption
  • Net positive impact on ecosystems
  • Minimize water use
  • Inform, empower and activate positive action for the environment

To achieve a long-term goal of zero waste, Disney will require minimizing overall waste, increasing and improving recycling and other disposal mitigation programs and utilizing high-recycled content products. In 2006, the baseline year, Disney diverted 128,000 tons of waste from landfills. Based off these results, Disney aims to decrease solid waste to landfills by 50 percent by 2013.

In 2008, Earth911.com and Disney teamed up in honor of America Recycles Day and the DVD release of Wall-E, to recognize the recycling efforts of Colfax Elementary School. The Wall-E DVD is packaged in recycled paperboard, with the internal tray and paper inserts made from 30 and 100 percent post-consumer recycled content, respectively.

Bibliography: Disney Announces Long-Term Environmental Goals
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.

Archived Comments

  1. Trey Granger

    Trey Granger

    posted on March 25th, 2009 at 10:15 am

    I remember Disneyworld was the first place I saw those fountains where the water squirts up from a hole in the ground and lands in a different hole, like a flying fish. I hope minimizing water use doesn’t mean the disappearance of the running fountains.

Recently Added to Paper

  • Location-Based Coupon App Reduces Paper Waste

    Keeping a coupon book is frustrating. Deals have expiration dates and sorting through junk mail is tedious, and not to mention bad for the environment. Nearly 100 million trees are cut down annually to make junk mail in the U.S., …

  • Help Save 571,230,000 Pounds of Paper Towels

    13 billion pounds of paper towels are used in the U.S. every year. If all Americans used one less paper towel a day, 571,230,000 pounds of paper would be spared over the course of the year. One man has a …

  • Denver Curbside Recycling Now Accepts Cartons

    Denver residents can now place cartons in their curbside recycling containers.

    As part of an Earth Day initiative, Denver mayor Michael B. Hancock announced the recycling addition to the Denver Public Works recycling program late last month. While cartons have always …

Earth911

Earth911 helps consumers find local recycling information through the largest and most accurate recycling directory in the U.S. Read today's top green lifestyle tips and ideas. Learn how we help businesses.