Disney world to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions, waste by 2020

08 / 07 / 2019

By Marwa Nassar - -

The Walt Disney Company is striving to greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent in 2020 and divert about 60 percent by 2020.

In 2018, the company had successfully reduced net emissions by 44% and diverted 54% of waste from landfills and incineration. Moreover, it reduced potable water consumption by 5.8% compared to the 2013 baseline. Shanghai Disneyland Resort developed a Water Conservation Plan.

Walt Disney world aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the half by 2020, thanks in part to a new 270 acre solar power plant in Florida theme parks.

The 50 megawatt farm features 518,000 solar panels. Disney estimates it can produce enough electricity to power 10,000 homes a year. The solar farm is almost twice as big as the Magic Kingdom. It can fully power of the Orlando theme parks.

In 2016, the company opened a 22-acre solar plant in the shape of Mickey Mouse. The new facility is ten times larger. It also includes an experimental test garden to aid in wildfire research.

At Walt Disney World Resort, pollinator-friendly gardens surround its new 270-acre, 50-megawatt solar facility, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50,000 tons per year. In fact, more than two-thirds of the facility is pollinator-friendly and offers a nurturing and welcoming habitat for butterflies, bees and other insects, including endangered and at-risk species.

Each week, the team of Disney Environmental and Horticulture experts visits the garden and methodically examines their test plots, observing their attractiveness to pollinators based on a variety of native plants and soil types. The team has spotted over 50 pollinators thus far, which is super encouraging for the team, as the garden is still early on in its growth.

Disney parks include a global fleet of vehicles running on renewable and alternative fuels. In fact, the Walt Disney World Transportation bus fleet was one of the first in the country to run on R50, a renewable fuel.

Steam trains and the Mark Twain Riverboat at Disneyland Resort utilize fuel made with used cooking oil from resort kitchens, and cleaner fuel alternatives also power parade floats, Monorails and various attraction vehicles. These efforts along with other energy and fuel projects contribute to the emissions reduction equivalent of removing more than 4,000 cars from roadways each year.

Disney-funded forestry projects are helping to protect and restore natural ecosystems around the globe. In the last decade, projects in six countries have supported more than 1 million acres of forestlands, protecting global areas more than 33 times the size of Walt Disney World Resort.

The company is also exerting efforts to reduce single-use plastics. In 2019, the company planned eliminate single-use plastic straws and plastic stirrers at all owned and operated locations across the globe, amounting to a reduction of more than 175 million straws and 13 million stirrers annually.

Disney also shared additional plans to reduce plastic waste across its businesses over the next few years by transitioning to refillable in-room amenities in Disney’s hotels and on cruise ships, reducing the number of plastic shopping bags in its parks and on Disney Cruise Line and by completing its work to eliminate polystyrene cups across all of its global owned and operated businesses. In addition to its long-term effort to reduce single-use plastics, the company pledged to continue to recycle and responsibly dispose single-use waste that cannot be eliminated.

The Disney Conservation Fund allocated more than $75 million to nonprofits in order to advance towards its long-term goals of attaining net zero greenhouse gas emissions and zero waste, while conserving water resources and reversing the decline of wildlife around the globe.

For more than 60 years, Disney has maintained a commitment to environmental stewardship that it has acted upon in both big and small ways around the world. The Walt Disney Company have plans in place to continue making great progress on all its sustainability goals.