OREANDA-NEWS. The UPS Foundation, the philanthropic arm of UPS® (NYSE: UPS), announced it has awarded nearly USD 2.5 million to non-profit organizations with an emphasis on environmental sustainability. The UPS Foundation's largest environmental grant recipient is The Nature Conservancy, a leading conservation organization that works globally to protect ecologically important lands and bodies of water.

Launched in 2011, UPS's Global Forestry Initiative goal is to help plant, protect and preserve trees in urban and rural areas and critical forests around the world. UPS's ongoing contribution to The Nature Conservancy continues to support the program for reforestation in the U.S., Brazil, Guatemala, Haiti and China. Through this effort, The Nature Conservancy will be directly responsible for planting 700,000 trees in at-risk or eroded ecosystems. The grant will also be used to support the Responsible Asia Forest Trade Dialogues program with the EU and to support the Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities Initiative.

The company also announced that it has surpassed the company's 2014 tree planting goals, planting more than 1.7 million trees this grant cycle. Since 2012, The UPS Foundation and UPS employees have planted more than 3 million trees across 47 countries to support the environment.

The UPS Foundation has four philanthropic pillars which are funded in local communities throughout the year. UPS's global programs are funded quarterly and in 2013, over 4,300 non-profit and NGO organizations worldwide received funding. The philanthropic pillars are Community Safety, Diversity, Environment and Volunteerism.

"At UPS, we believe volunteers are at the heart of all efforts at building community resiliency and they are critical to help sustain our environment," said Eduardo Martinez, president of The UPS Foundation. "Through volunteer service hours committed by UPS employees as well as our environmental grants program, The UPS Foundation is dedicated to delivering time and resources to enhance environmental stewardship, especially in support of carbon reduction, environmental research, education and conservation."

In addition to The Nature Conservancy, nine other organizations are recipients of The UPS Foundation's 2014 environmental grants. They include:

Student Conservation Association Inc. (SCA) for the SCA National Conservation Internship program for college students interested in careers in environmental stewardship.

World Business Council for Sustainable Development to support the organization's annual conference by providing organizational support around sustainable development programs.

World Resources Institute toward sustainability research to support of The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and Reducing Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Systems.

World Wildlife Fund to build local capacity for tropical rainforest restoration and reforestation in Africa, Asia and Latin American through 10 Education for Global Reforestation grants.

DonorsChoose.org for environmental education classroom projects submitted by public school teachers in rural communities.

Earth Day Network to help the Trees for Communities project plant 380,000 trees in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania as well as throughout the Boreal Forest in Canada, Russia and Norway.

Keep America Beautiful, Inc., for 30 community planting tree grants and five post-recovery tree planting grants.

National Arbor Day Foundation for reforestation projects in the U.S. and the Boreal Forest in Canada.

National Park Foundation toward continued backing of the reforestation of reclaimed mining land which supports the UPS Global Forestry Initiative at the new Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Penn., honoring the heroes of Sept. 11.