denn's flickr photostream/Creative Commons

Almost a year ago, Disney announced its plan to release nature-related films under the new imprint “Disneynature,” but now it looks like the company is stepping up its game by announcing that, ultimately, the company wants to “achieve net zero direct greenhouse gas emissions at its office and retail complexes, theme parks and cruise lines.”

The first step in this plan, says Reuters, is to cut carbon emission from fuels in half by 2012. By 2013, electricity will be cut by 10 percent and solid waste to landfills by 50 percent, both of those compared to 2006 levels. The latter part of that is the first step towards the final goal to “zero the amount of waste it sends to landfills — which totaled nearly 300,000 tons in 2006, much of it from construction, through diverting some to recycling centers, composting and buying more post-consumer recycled materials.”

Disney worked with Conservation International on the logistics of this, and is actually hiring a third-party auditor to make sure this stuff all happens. It seems like they’re serious about this. However, Disney’s senior vice president of environmental affairs admitted there’s no specific timeframe to get emissions all the way to zero, as some of the technologies they may need may not really even exist yet. But, seeing as Disney can pay the government to create environmentally-friendly fireworks, maybe this isn’t such a hurdle after all.

So, there you have it. Now, next time you go on Splash Mountain, you don’t have to feel guilty about all that water running around that ride. Cause Disney’s doing something about it. You can, however, realize how ridiculously lame that ride would be if you didn’t get dropped a billion feet down a mountain in the middle of it. I mean, it has chickens doing the can-can. Really, Splash Mountain?

You can takepart with Conservation International, the company helping Disney make these changes.