LATAM Airlines announces first conservation project to advance carbon neutrality

Grupo LATAM announced its first alliance with a project for the conservation and restoration of an iconic South American ecosystem. The project called CO2BIO is located in the Colombian Orinoquía and covers more than 200 thousand hectares of flooded savanna. Over the next few months, the group hopes to introduce new alliances in the countries where it operates in the region.

CO2BIO has been promoted by the Cataruben Foundation and has the support of the Natural Wealth Program of the United States Agency for International Development- USAID and Panthera Colombia.

“CO2BIO is the first project supported by LATAM for the conservation and rehabilitation of iconic ecosystems in South America. Through projects like this we will advance in three areas: protecting the natural heritage of our region for future generations, tackling climate change through increased CO2 capture and contributing to improving the quality of life of local communities ”, stated Roberto Alvo, CEO of the LATAM Group. "Through this project we are taking a concrete step to meet our goal of offsetting 50% of domestic emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050," he added.

The CO2BIO project includes activities for the conservation of forests, wetlands and grasslands, in addition to promoting the development of sustainable productive activities in the departments of Casanare, Vichada, Arauca and Meta. 191 families live in the area, which are part of the conservation project of the 200 thousand hectares of flooded savanna, habitat of more than two thousand species.

Through conservation and rehabilitation actions, this initiative will capture 1 million tons of CO2 during the 2021-2023 period, and has the potential to capture up to an additional 2.8 million tons by 2025, if progress is made in new stages of the project. Over the next few months, LATAM expects to announce new iconic ecosystem conservation projects in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

It should be remembered that in May of this year LATAM launched its sustainability strategy in which the Group undertakes, among other things, to eliminate single-use plastics by 2023, generate zero waste to landfill by 2027, offset 50% of household emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.