This Saturday, March 25th at 8:30 pm you may notice your world is a little darker. This is because millions across the world in 178 countries will turn off their lights for one hour to “shine a light on the need for climate action” as part of the global Earth Hour celebration.
Coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund and numerous volunteer organizations, Earth Hour is celebrating its tenth year and continues to be the world’s largest grassroots movement for the environment. Last year, over 12,700 landmarks and monuments turned off their lights for Earth Hour and over 2.4+ million actions were taken to help climate change.
Today, in honor of Earth Hour, we are happy to highlight one of Earth’s ambassadors, an organization protecting the planet’s vital resources – trees. We look at how through our software donation program with TechSoup Symantec’s security protection is enabling the organization to thrive.
The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF) is a nonprofit dedicated to planting edible, fruitful trees and plants to benefit the environment and all its inhabitants. The organization has a mission to plant and help others plant 18 billion fruit trees around the world. These community orchards not only enrich the environment and provide hunger relief, but also bring together neighbors to care for their trees, encourage communities to get outside and inspire families to experience nature—all of which contribute towards healthier, happier communities.
“Safety isn’t the first thing you think of when planting fruit trees, but it is an important motivator for our work. It has been widely recorded that communities with increased green spaces and leaf cover see a decrease in criminal activity and increase in both individual and community wellbeing,” said Lizzy Rainey, special projects coordinator at the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation
Working both globally and domestically, FTPF collects and stores vast amounts of sensitive data related to their many clients and projects—including information on schools, parks and community gardens, low-income neighborhoods and international hunger relief sites, Native American reservations, health centers and animal sanctuaries—as well as personal information about their employees and volunteers.
FTPF recognized the importance of securing their data and infrastructure. After learning about Symantec through the company’s software donation partnership with TechSoup, FTPF deployed Norton Small Business to protect the organization’s data from viruses, spyware, malware and other security threats.
Symantec and TechSoup are helping the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation reach their goal of planting 18 billion fruit trees worldwide through a partnership with the Symantec Software Donation program.
“On many of our trips, we are constantly reminded of the importance of our safety, and even though we cannot always be sure that the streets will be safe, we always feel secure as we work on our computers because we know Symantec is keeping our important information and documents safe and secure. And just as our staff and volunteers feel safe at our desks and in our homes by using Symantec Norton Security, we are beginning to see the burgeoning sense of safety in the streets of rural communities. We are planting the seeds, quite literally, for a safer future, where neighbors come together to plant, maintain, and harvest their fruit trees for generations to come,” said Rainey.
Communities with increased green spaces and leaf cover see a decrease in criminal activity and an increase in both individual and community wellbeing.
The FTPF’s efforts align with Symantec’s longstanding commitment to environmental responsibility. Last year, Symantec established a new, ambitious science-based GHG emissions reduction goal to reduce its GHG emissions by 30 percent by 2025 (FY15 baseline). Additionally, in 2016 alone, Symantec employees spent countless hours cleaning up beaches, preserving wetlands building community gardens and engaging in other volunteer efforts to protect the environment and the communities where we live and work.
Through its mission to plant 18 billion fruit trees, FTPF is an inspiring example of the power of taking action, creating a safer community, safer planet and enriching the lives of many.
As Earth Hour emphasizes “your action today can change our tomorrow”. We can all begin by turning off our lights in honor of Earth Hour this weekend; if over twelve thousand landmarks can go without light for an hour, what is stopping you? However, it shouldn’t stop here. Every day we can think about turning off unnecessary lights and conserving resources where we can. Together every little bit creates a large impact.
About Symantec’s Product Donation Program
Product donation is Symantec’s largest mechanism to support the nonprofit community and help nonprofits fulfill their missions. In partnership with TechSoup, each year Symantec provides cybersecurity solutions to more than 25,000 organizations across 55 countries worldwide, allowing them to secure their most important data wherever it lives. Since launching the software donation program in 2002, Symantec has helped more than 93,000 nonprofits solve today’s biggest security challenges and protect against the ever-evolving threat landscape.
Learn more about some of the many nonprofits utilizing Symantec products through Symantec’s partnership with TechSoup: