MakeMyTrip’s GoGreen Drive Helps Plant One Million Trees

India’s leading online travel company, has successfully supported plantation of one million trees through MakeMyTrip Foundation in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand and Udaipur districts as part of its efforts to support responsible travel. The drive has been carried out in partnership with Seva Mandir, a leading non-profit organization that works with local communities on development projects, especially focusing on sustainability.

MakeMyTrip’s GoGreen initiative is a 360-degree drive that aims to promote responsible travel and environmental sustainability by involving all stakeholders including customers, employees and local communities. The tree plantation effort covering 2,350 hectares of land has been carried out with the contribution made by customers to MakeMyTrip foundation each time they have booked their flights and hotels on the platform.

Speaking about MakeMyTrip’s green milestone, Minister of State for Tourism, Mr. K.J. Alphons said, “The efforts made by MakeMyTrip Foundation and Sewa Mandir are commendable and am happy that they have reached the significant milestone of planting one million trees. If we are to make tourism sustainable in India, all stakeholders including Industry leaders need to step up and co-create innovative solutions to make Responsible Tourism the norm and not an exception.”

Commenting on the initiative, Deep Kalra, Founder and Group CEO, MakeMyTrip said, “As India’s one-stop-travel-shop, we have always felt it’s incumbent on us to promote responsible travel. While travel opens new horizons and is a necessity more than a choice for a new India on the move, we are also conscious of the impact it makes to our environment. To help offset the carbon footprint of travellers, we joined hands with our customers to help make the difference – this initiative is a unique example of corporate-community partnership for social impact. We are immensely proud of the results and are hopeful that this is just the start of collaborative impact that we can make together by making a thoughtful contribution.“

Ronak Shah, Chief Executive, Seva Mandir said, “One of the most effective ways to reduce carbon footprint is to grow more trees and MakeMyTrip has shown unwavering commitment by partnering with us over the last decade to transform the terrain through green cover. One Million Tree marks an important milestone in our longstanding partnership which has also enabled the local community in regenerating and developing their common and private land.”

A public charitable trust, the MakeMyTrip Foundation has been set up to actively and passionately contribute towards issues of broader social impact, especially focusing on promoting responsible travel. As part of its charter, MakeMyTrip Foundation is investing resources and creating awareness to improve ecological balance, offset carbon footprint and support restoration of Indian heritage. The foundation supports these goals through soft skills training of local travel hosts & travel guides, training of front-line staff at tourism hot spots and its plastic waste management project that it has piloted in three islands of Andamans and Gurgaon. MakeMyTrip Foundation has also recently signed an MoU with Sonam Wangchuk’s Himalayan Institute of Alternatives (HIAL) in Ladakh for a first of its kind carbon offsetting project.