Even Kermit isn’t this green.

There’s a lot of “green” news this week as we continue to make sustainability a top priority.

All of the latest on our nearly $1 billion green bond.

One year ago, we became the first U.S. telecom company to issue a green bond, raising almost $1 billion in net proceeds across a range of sustainability categories. Through 2019, we’ve allocated approximately nearly half a billion dollars in the following areas:

• Renewable Energy: $143.23 million
• Green Buildings: $319.34 million
• Energy Efficiency: $36.65 million
• Biodiversity & Conservation: $0.77 million

These projects are proof we’re delivering on our commitments of being more efficient, benefitting the communities we serve and minimizing our overall environmental impact.

And our efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. We jumped from number 63 to 30 this year on Barron’s list of 100 most sustainable companies in America.

You can read the full Green Bond Report here:

Lending hands -- and trees -- to hurricane recovery.

We sponsored hurricane recovery tree giveaways in Wilmington, NC, and another happening this weekend in Parker, FL. Employees can volunteer their time and any member of the public can pick up a free tree. You can see a video from the event here.

There’s also a tree-planting event taking place this weekend in Port St. Joe, FL. These events are all part of our commitment to plant 250K trees by 2025 in areas impacted by recent hurricanes and 10 million trees overall by 2030.

Giving a second life to holiday cards and eyeglasses.

In December, V Teamers at over 80 Verizon locations collected nearly 5,000 holiday cards and sent them to St. Jude's Ranch for Children, where the cards were upcycled and sold to benefit the children. You can learn more about the program here.

In a separate initiative, employees throughout the month of January were asked to donate eyeglasses that were still usable in support of the Lions Recycle for Sight program. V Teamers responded by collecting over 1,500 pairs of glasses. We’d like to give a special shout out to some of our top donating teams: Pittsburgh, PA, Wilmington, NC, Murfreesboro, TN, and Chandler, AZ.

Here comes the sun.

We’re proud to announce three more locations going solar: Branchburg, NJ, Piscataway, NJ, and Rocklin, CA. These are all part of our commitment to source 50% of our total electricity from renewables by 2025.

You can learn more here and be sure to keep up with all our green news on VZWeb.

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