Commemorating the 50th Earth Day

Leading up to this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Twitter has been working closely with the Earth Day Network to help elevate the efforts and conversation around this global initiative.

Earth Day Network’s mission is to build the world’s largest environmental movement to drive transformative change for people and the planet. They seek to diversify, educate and activate environmentally-conscious people worldwide. At Twitter, we’re dedicated to supporting their work by democratizing access to information on why the environmental movement is critical to the health of our planet and its people.

Despite the uniquely challenging circumstances presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual commitments and activations will still be happening to work toward slowing the effects of climate change. Building on our work from last year, the #EarthDay emoji is active to celebrate the work of individuals around the globe who are committed to the cause. We also donated advertising credits again this year through our #AdsForGood program to help amplify the message.

In addition to our partnership with the Earth Day Network, we’ve supported other organizations working to promote environmental conservation and sustainability. Through numerous engagements including events, #AdsForGood grants, on-service support, and trainings, we’ve helped them use the power of Twitter to amplify their work and raise awareness. These have included the global and/or local chapters of: United Nations (UN) Environment Programme, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Development Programme, Greenpeace, Voice for the Planet, Let Me Breathe, WWF, 350.org, FridaysForFuture, We Don’t Have Time, among others.

As we mentioned in 2019, our data centers represent an area of opportunity for us to think of our business through the lens of sustainability and to put our dedication into practice. We’re continuing to work toward our goal of achieving 100% carbon-neutral power sourcing in our current data centers by the end of 2022. While we work to reach that target, we’re also offsetting our current carbon emissions through the climate change and environmental nonprofit Cool Effect. Tweeps from around the globe voted last year and we selected three distinct projects as the financial beneficiaries of our offsetting initiatives:

☝️Protecting Brazil’s Jacundá Forest Reserve — This reserve strives to improve conservation of the rainforest while working to protect the livelihoods of those who live and work there.

✌️Tree planting initiatives in India, Kenya, and Uganda — This project helps small communities replant trees so they can counter the effects of poverty, deforestation, and harmful carbon emissions.

🤟A biodiversity protection project in Indonesia — Indonesia is losing forests at the rate of half a million hectares a year, which is one of the highest rates in the world. The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, the largest REDD+ project in the world, works to preserve these forests and stop development and deforestation.

Once again this year, we’ll be building on these partnerships and continuing to support the areas where we’re making the largest sustainability impact. 

We made a decision early on for our employees globally to work from home to support efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. Over the past year, we've also celebrated significant achievements in our Twitter offices and maintained momentum while working remotely. 

Highlights from our work leading up to the 50th anniversary include:

• Office Build-Outs: We will continue to work closely with our Real Estate and Workplace team to ensure that we’re retrofitting and installing environmentally-friendly water faucets and achieving at least 95% “Green Certified” status and using 100% Carbon Neutral Energy in our directly-leased buildings by 2025. To date, 92% of our global office space is Green Building Certified Spaces.
• Energy: In 2019, Twitter converted 300,000+ square feet of office space, or roughly 300kWh/mo of standard grid electricity to 100% renewable energy through PG&E’s Solar Choice Program in our San Francisco office.
• Sustainability Team: In 2019, Twitter’s Real Estate & Workplace team formally developed a Workplace Sustainability Team focusing on implementing sustainability standards and reducing our impact on the environment. This team also created resources for employees to encourage environmentally healthy habits, even as we work from home. 
• Plastic Use: By reducing our single-use plastic consumption, we’ve effectively removed more than 100,000+ plastic straws, 70,000+ plastic toothbrushes, and 35,000+ single-use plastic beverage bottles from our offices per year.
• Recycled Products: We continue to strive to introduce and increase pre- and post-consumer recycled content in our office supply. In 2019, we introduced 100% recycled content mailer packages in our San Francisco mailroom and are still working toward our goal of utilizing 100% recycled paper products by the end of 2020. We’ve also partnered with TerraCycle in several offices to recycle products that otherwise would not be recyclable through existing municipal systems (i.e., plastic bags, plastic shipping material, pens, and other writing utensils).

• Composting: We’re actively composting in more than a third of our offices around the world to divert organic waste away from landfills — we will meet a 50% target in 2021. For example, after introducing this in our Atlanta office in 2019, we were able to divert 244 pounds of organic waste from landfills in less than six months. 

How Twitter employees are getting involved
We’ve created an internal programming to encourage Tweeps to learn, participate in the conversation, and engage in remote volunteer activities to celebrate the day. We also set up a dedicated internal #EarthDay2020 campaign page through our employee donation matching program to support organizations working on environmental conservation and sustainability. Any Twitter employee can donate to relevant nonprofit organizations and Twitter will match donations up to a maximum amount per employee. 

What can you do?
From charitable contributions, watching documentaries, and reading scientific material to DIY projects in your community or volunteering your time and talents — there are a number of ways for people to get involved in Earth Day, even while we #StayHome. 

We encourage you to Tweet using the hashtag #EarthDay to help spread awareness about the 50th-anniversary celebration and let the world know what you’re committed to doing this year to increase environmental sustainability. It’s on all of us.