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Launch of Social and Environmental Management System (SEMS)
We launched a Social and Environmental Management System (SEMS) in the year under review and brought it under a dedicated officer. The SEMS provides a policy framework, implementation system and a monitoring mechanism to ensure that not only the Bank but also its customers conform to certain standards. Its objectives are as follows:
- To identify and assess social and environment impacts, both adverse and beneficial, in the project’s area of influence
- To avoid, or where avoidance is not possible, minimise, mitigate or compensate for adverse impacts on workers, affected communities and the environment
- To ensure that affected communities are appropriately engaged on issues that could potentially affect them
- To promote improved social and environment performance of our client companies through the effective use of management systems
Carbon Footprint - a voluntary initiative
We are conscious that greenhouse gases produced as a by-product of our operations is contributing to global warming. Sri Lanka is not an Annex 1 country which is legally bound to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. However, at Commercial Bank, we have decided
to voluntarily take measures to reduce our emissions.
In the ensuing year, we will be developing our strategy and instituting a programme to reduce our emissions within a specified number of years. As a preliminary, we have measured our direct carbon emissions.
We have used Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Standard to measure our emissions. Scopes 1 and 2 of the said standard have been used.
Being a Bank, ours is an office-based organisation. Thus, our main direct contributors to greenhouse gases were considered to stem from our travel and transport vehicles and the electricity that we purchase. We also included hired transport used for our day-to-day activities. However, these don’t represent an exhaustive list and they are also limited by the lack of readily available data in our organisation that is widely dispersed across hundreds of locations. Also, we have not considered our indirect contributors to emissions (Scope 3). It is with these limitations that we report on our carbon footprint for 2008.
Given that the major part of our operations is based in Sri Lanka, we have limited the operations boundary to our head office and all offices and branches in the island.
The operations of our subsidiaries are based in the Bank’s own premises. Of our associates, the major one, Commercial Leasing was divested in the year under review. The remaining are relatively small, and in addition, our stake in them is less than 25%. Thus, we have taken the Bank as our organisational boundary.
This is but a preliminary step in
our quest towards becoming a carbon zero company.
Green Loans
Commercial Bank’s ‘E-Friends II Credit Line’ Loans provide concessionary funding for those entrepreneurs who adopt environmentally-friendly technologies. Since its launch in 2005, the Bank has advanced a total sum of Rs. 1.3 Bn which includes Rs. 477.1 Mn (The credit Line was fully committed during this year) advanced in the year under review.
** tCO2-e means metric tons of Carbon Dioxide equivalent. There are six main greenhouse gases that are considered. They are carbon dioxide (CO2 ), methane (CH4 ), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6 ). The potency of each of them as a greenhouse gas is different. Carbon Dioxide equivalent, states the functionally equivalent amount of these gases, taking carbon dioxide (CO2 ) as the reference. |
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