MetLife 2023 Sustainability Report: Protecting Nature and Biodiversity
MetLife’s commitment to environmental stewardship and responsible resource management includes initiatives and programs that protect and enhance nature, plants and animals, including biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.
As a member of 1t.org, a global leadership platform to mobilize, connect and empower the global reforestation community to conserve, restore and grow 1 trillion trees by 2030, MetLife has made a pledge to plant 5 million trees around the world, prioritizing areas vulnerable to natural disasters. We undertake this pledge, in partnership with our customers, colleagues and other stakeholders, to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere, enhance biodiversity and help reforest areas that have been decimated by deforestation by humans and by natural disasters, including hurricanes, floods and wildfires.
MetLife and MetLife Foundation are making progress on this pledge through financial support to large-scale reforestation programs in national and state forests, distributing trees to homeowners in communities impacted by disaster and employee volunteer planting projects around the world. In addition, we leverage our support of tree‑planting projects to educate and engage our colleagues, customers and the community on the importance of trees in combating climate change and supporting healthy ecosystems.
In 2023, we reached a major milestone in our tree-planting commitment: 1.6M+ trees planted since 2020.
Some impactful tree-planting projects MetLife and MetLife Foundation undertook throughout the year included:
- 25,000 trees planted in the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon, via the Arbor Day Foundation, to protect at-risk species like the northern spotted owl, as well as improve the forest’s resilience against future fires;
- 5,000 seedlings planted in the Nazaré Paulista region of Brazil, in collaboration with the Ipê Institute (Institute for Ecological Research), to improve the quality of the water supply to the Greater São Paulo area;
- MetLife Foundation and the Shakti Foundation provided funding to Dhaka North City Corporation to plant 17,600 trees in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with the aim of improving air quality and transforming abandoned land into green, child‑friendly public spaces; and
- MetLife Foundation provided support to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 100,000 trees between 2022 and 2024 in forests and communities in need across nine different countries in EMEA.
In addition to reforestation and afforestation efforts, we are committed to protecting biodiversity more broadly. We have initiated a three-year partnership with Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC), whose mission is to conserve Australian native animal species and the habitats in which they live. MetLife’s partnership with AWC will include financial support for its reintroduction program, which aims to restore threatened species that have disappeared from Australian landscapes. AWC will also provide education on biodiversity and climate change to MetLife colleagues.
In an effort to promote the health of pollinators, MetLife supports programs that maintain beehives at some of our office locations. At our Cary, North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida, campuses we partner with Bee Downtown to maintain honey beehives and provide year-round employee engagement opportunities. In North Carolina, these bees produced 311 pounds of honey in 2023 (double the state average), flying an estimated 17 million miles in the process. MetLife also sponsors beehives maintained by our partnership with The Best Bees Company at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which seeks to promote pollination in the surrounding meadowlands’ ecosystem.
MetLife and MIM also originate investments that support biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.
Download the full MetLife 2023 Sustainability Report
