CleanTech Alliance Gold Leader Alaska Air Group, the holding company for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Airlines, is known as one of the greenest airline companies in the world.
Alaska Air Group was honored by Seattle Business Magazine as the Business of the Year: Large Companies.
Alaska has reduced its carbon footprint by 34 percent since 2004 and has diverted almost 3,000 tons of recyclables since 2011. But the company is also one of the Pacific Northwest’s most socially conscious. Alaska Air Group recently donated $1.5 million to support Seattle’s Raisbeck Aviation High School and an additional $2.5 million to the Alaska Airlines Aerospace Education Center at The Museum of Flight.
Alaska pledges ongoing sponsorship support to classic community events including SeaFair and the Bite of Seattle, but also looks for new sponsorship opportunities, such as a recent pledge of $2.5 million over five years for Emerald City Cycle Share, Seattle’s new bicycle sharing program.In 2013, Alaska Air Group’s 13,000 employees, half of whom live in the Seattle area, contributed more than 10,500 hours of volunteer service, and the company donated $7.6 million to 1,300 nonprofit organizations.
Aside from these noble efforts on behalf of the community, the economic benefit of Alaska Air Group’s presence in the Northwest cannot be overstated: It contributed an estimated $2.3 billion to the Washington economy in 2013.