LIME, the premier telecommunications company in the region, is stepping up its 'Go Green' efforts with the announcement of two major initiatives to promote environmental preservation in every Caribbean country where it operates.

The first initiative is a massive tree-planting programme, which started on World Earth Day, April 22. LIME's employees will be joining forces with primary schools, community groups, service clubs and other organisations across the region to plant as many as 3,000 seedlings to replace trees which were harvested or destroyed over the years.

The second initiative LIME announced is a drive to encourage hundreds of thousands of its customers across the region to go paperless by using eBilling or Direct Debit to pay their LIME bills. eBilling, which will allow customers to receive and pay their bills online, will come on stream within the next few weeks and Direct Debit is already available in some of LIME's markets. To encourage customers to choose these payment options, LIME will be rolling out a promotional campaign and providing discounts and other incentives.

LIME also plans to restart its former industry-leading mobile handset recycling and safe battery disposal programmes, and it will be expanding to other islands the telephone directory recycling initiative which is currently being undertaken in Barbados and about to be restarted in Jamaica. The company is also launching several internal initiatives to get staff to reduce paper usage, conserve energy and utilise office equipment more efficiently.

In announcing the expanded environmental focus, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Richard Dodd said, "When we launched our new Caribbean Business last year we made it clear that we are committed to preserving the environment for the next generation and beyond, and we are now making good on that commitment."

He added, "We want to strongly encourage governments and other private-sector entities across the region to take immediate action also, so we can see measureable improvements in our environment."

The LIME CEO pointed out that environmental protection is not a new focus for LIME as his company has consistently infused eco-friendly practices into its operations and currently recycles plastic bottles, toner cartridges, large batteries, cable and other scrap metals. In addition, the company is actively looking for biodegradable alternatives to the plastic bags used at its stores and plastic phone cards used for top-up and international calling.