Submitted by PayByPhone
The City of Olympia, Washington, today announces it has signed up to Meters for Trees, the multi-award-winning tree planting initiative from PayByPhone, a global leader in mobile parking payments, effective immediately.
Chelsea Baker van Drood, Parking Services Program Specialist, City of Olympia, says, “We’re excited to partner with PayByPhone on Meters for Trees as part of our commitment to combating climate change and deforestation. This initiative offers an innovative and easy way to promote mobile parking payments while planting verified trees and making a meaningful environmental impact. Mobile parking payments offer our citizens a more convenient way to pay for parking, and by removing 724 meters, we have calculated that it saves us over $18,000 per year in meter repair, maintenance, and cash collection, and over 300 hours of staff time that can be better spent on other community services.”
PayByPhone, the parking payments provider in Olympia since July 7, 2017 across its 267 on- and off-street parking locations, first launched Meters for Trees in the UK in 2019 as part of its broader environmental campaigns, including Green December. These initiatives help forward-thinking cities, universities, and parking operators reduce their costly parking hardware as they opt for a mobile app-based parking service. Over the past five years, PayByPhone’s environmental campaigns have collectively planted over 225,000 trees globally.
Meters for Trees will help Olympia establish a green legacy by removing parking hardware and planting trees while at the same time saving costs. Removing payment hardware and encouraging digital parking payments can lead to a reduction of costly compliance issues for the City and limits the need for expensive readers in the payment hardware. In return, trees will be planted in the City’s name benefitting the environment.
Under the terms of Meters for Trees, PayByPhone will plant one tree for every multi-space pay station, and one tree for every 10 single space parking meters that are removed in the City of Olympia, totaling 217 trees in 2025. Trees will be planted through PayByPhone’s partner, veritree, an organization that connects businesses with verified tree planting projects to elevate global reforestation. Each tree planted in Olympia’s name absorbs CO₂ as it grows, directly benefitting the local environment through carbon footprint reduction as CO₂ is sequestered from the atmosphere.
Carmen Donnell, Managing Director for North America, PayByPhone, says, “Welcoming the City of Olympia to our Meters for Trees campaign is a meaningful step toward building a greener tomorrow. We’re proud to work alongside partners who share our vision of sustainability and environmental stewardship, making it easy for parking operators to contribute to reforestation efforts.”
Meters for Trees is a multi-award-winning initiative, having won 12 international awards, including a Global Gold Award at the 2019 Green World Environment Awards in the Carbon Reduction and Local Authorities categories, the Green Champion Award in Carbon Reduction at the 2019 Green Apple Environment Awards, and the Environmental Initiative Award at the 2020 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards.
For more information about Meters for Trees, please visit the PayByPhone website.
