Athena Software is proud to announce the appointment of Athena Partner Diane Stanley-Horn to the board of directors at Sustainable Waterloo, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Waterloo Region through their Regional Carbon Initiative.

Athena is a Bronze Pledging Partner in the initiative encouraging voluntary target-setting to reduce carbon emissions. In order to reduce our carbon footprint, Athena uses Sustainable Waterloo's online carbon reporting tool to track staff commuting, business travel, electrical energy consumption, waste and other areas of our operations.

We are also able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through the use of screen-sharing technology to conduct demos or provide training to clients anywhere in the world without leaving our office! In fact, we now provide more than 99 per cent of our sales, implementation and support services remotely by focusing on effective telecommunication and an increasingly diverse multimedia approach to consultation and training.

Athena has many clients in Australia and our staff occasionally travel there for training and conferences -- in keeping with our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint, we often purchase carbon offsets through Qantas when flying Down Under. The airline's Fly Carbon Neutral program is in accordance with the Australian government's National Carbon Offset Standard, and allows travellers to pay a premium to contribute to projects limiting the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.