Sustainability
Soneri Banks Green Banking Office
Green Banking is a term that refers to the promotion of environmentally and socially friendly practices that aid Banks and their clients in identifying and managing environmental and social risks as well as reducing their carbon footprint and related socially adverse actions.
Green banking optimizes costs, reduces risk, enhances banks’ reputations and contributes to the common good of environmental sustainability. Therefore, it serves both the commercial objective of the bank as well as its social responsibility.
- Environmental and Social Risk Management
- Green Business Facilitation
- Own Impact Reduction
Initiatives of Green Banking Office
The Green Banking Office (GBO) was established on the directive of the State Bank of Pakistan to drive the bank’s transformation towards environmentally and socially responsible banking practices. The GBO has developed and implemented Green Banking Policy and taken several initiatives for the implementation of the SBP’s Green Banking Guidelines of 2017 and Environmental, and Social Risk Management (ESRM) Manual of 2021 in Soneri Bank Limited.
Environmental and Social Risk awareness to the Bank Staff and Customers
The Green Banking Office through its green marketing strategy circulates messages on International Environmental and Social awareness days to all the stakeholders using digital marketing channels and emails to promote environmental and social impacts on the society. The message of green to create awareness on ground level to staff is delivered via Mock BCP Drill to branches across Pakistan.
Yellow is the New Green
The Green Banking Office has developed and rolled out ‘Yellow is the New Green’ initiative as a theme to promote Green Banking awareness to staff and customers.
Green Banking – ESG & ESRM Awareness Session to the Board of Directors
Green banking office conducted an ESG Workshop for its Board of Directors. The session was delivered by PICG, highlighting key ESG points, giving an overview of its standards and benchmarks along with scopes of emissions and reporting. Discussion was held regarding governance, strategy and role of the board in driving ESG initiatives forward and exploring innovative steps that the Bank can take towards achieving sustainability. Soneri Bank’s Board of Directors showed their commitment to sustainable practices that creates clean environment and safe society for Pakistan.
Green Banking Awareness Session to the Management Committee (MANCOM)
Green Banking awareness session presented to MANCOM to create awareness amongst the top leadership of the Bank along with suggestions for effective implementation of Green Banking initiatives.
Own Impact Reduction and Business Facilitation
Under own impact reduction and business facilitation initiatives, Bank has worked on various process management automations to cut down time, conserve paper and to improve efficiency. Bank has worked on digitization of various business processes like digital account opening, customer onboarding, payments and cash management as part of business innovation strategy that promotes Green Change.
Environmental and Social – Green Banking Trainings for Staff
Green Banking Office developed a virtual training module on green banking awareness including ESRM through bank’s Learning Management System (LMS) as a mandatory training for all new and existing Bank’s staff.
Environmental and Social Risk Rating (ESRR) System
For assessment of the environmental and social risks associated with the client’s business/ industry, an automated Environmental and Social Risk Rating (ESRR) module including Exclusion/ Avoidance checklist has been introduced as part of credit underwriting process with a view to safeguard against environmental and social risks emerging from Bank’s financing & investment activities.
Green Banking – Beach Cleaning Activity
Green Banking Office together with marketing team conducted a beach cleaning activity to remove plastic and other debris from Karachi’s Sea View beach with Bank’s staff from various departments. This activity promoted awareness of reducing plastic waste that ends up in the sea affecting biodiversity and the environment.
Rung Do Pakistan
Soneri Bank collaborated with World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF Pakistan) in Tree plantation drive called “Rung Do Pakistan”. This initiative aligns with Soneri Banks’s dedication to making a positive impact on the environment and reflects bank’s ongoing efforts to contribute to a greener and more sustainable Pakistan.
Customer Awareness Sessions on Green Banking, ESG, ESRM and Green Taxonomy (Draft)
Green Banking Office conducted awareness sessions on Green Banking Guidelines (GBGs), Environmental and Social Risk Management (ESRM) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices and Green Taxonomy (Draft) for Corporate, SME/ Commercial, Agricultural customers at Karachi and Hyderabad, respectively. Representative from State Bank of Pakistan was present at Karachi session to highlight banking sector commitment to sustainability and encourage customers to adopt environmental and social friendly practices. In addition to the session, plants were distributed to the respective clients and management of the bank as a symbolic gesture.
Green Banking Awareness on ESRM and Introduction to ESG Session for Departmental Heads
Green Banking conducted an engaging session on ESG – The Way Forward to various departmental heads of the Bank. The session highlighted key topics on State Bank of Pakistan guidelines on green banking, critical role of Environmental, social and governance (ESG) in shaping the future towards sustainability, UNDP’s Sustainable development goals, ESG’s monitoring and reporting of standards and KPIs to drive change within the organization. The objective was to deepen understanding of the increasing importance of ESG in banking and redefining roles and responsibilities of departments towards achieving sustainable targets.
Green Banking Office Introduces and integrates AI system to Capture Emissions
Soneri Bank Limited signed an MOU with Climatica for automation of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) through Gen-AI Bot enabled system. The collaboration is a step ahead towards Bank’s journey for a successful net zero future. Through this partnership, this AI platform provides the Bank a tool that continuously learns through ingesting data from all sources, performs analysis to forecast GHG emissions and generates reports and disclosures in real time hence enabling SNBL to hasten their emission reductions, anticipating the impact of future disclosures while adhering to local and international standards.
Green Banking Office Contact email: [email protected]