Sri Lanka is 100,000 trees richer thanks to the completion, ahead of schedule, of a commitment by the Commercial Bank of Ceylon to plant that number of trees at selected locations across the island, and the Bank has announced plans to plant another 100,000 trees over the next 12 months.
Sri Lanka’s leading private sector bank recently celebrated the successful completion of its ambitious ‘Trees for Tomorrow’ project, originally planned for execution over three years, in exactly one year from its launch.
“This is a significant milestone for us, for our country’s rich and diverse ecosystems, for the Bank’s sustainability road map, and its vision for the future,” Commercial Bank Managing Director/CEO Mr Sanath Manatunge commented. “Our sustainability agenda now interlinks with everything we do, and this project and its expansion underscore our unwavering dedication to environmental conservation and sustainable development. It is also an excellent example of what the Bank can achieve with single-minded commitment and engagement with passionate and likeminded people and institutions.”
The main event celebrating the completion of the project and the launch of another of equal proportions took place at Commercial Bank’s Elite Branch in Colombo with the participation of Mr Manatunge, the Bank’s Chief Operating Officer Mr S. Prabagar, members of the corporate management and key customers.
Several Commercial Bank branches across the country also held celebrations on their own with customers from their respective regions, and all invitees were presented with plants as a token of the Bank’s commitment to environmental sustainability and customer engagement.
Commercial Bank’s ‘Trees for Tomorrow’ programme, launched on 11th November 2023, envisaged engagement with government agencies, universities, the Sri Lanka Army, Department of Forest Conservation and other institutions that would allocate the land, and support the initiative by helping the Bank to protect and maintain the trees till they are self-sustaining.
As the programme progressed, the Bank entered into partnerships with several organisations, including the University of Jaffna, the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Preserving Land and Nature (Guarantee) Ltd, or PLANT, an initiative of the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) for tree planting and reforestation projects in areas as diverse as Jaffna and Kilinochchi, Kalutara and Maskeliya.
During this period, Commercial Bank also joined the ‘Life to our coral reefs’ initiative of Biodiversity Sri Lanka (BSL), to support to an effort to conserve the Kayankerni marine sanctuary located between Panichankerni and Kalkuda in the Batticaloa District.
Among other significant environment-related projects supported by the Commercial Bank are the reforestation of a 100-hectare swath of degraded habitat belonging to the Kandegama forest in the Dimbulagala range of the Polonnaruwa District, a mangrove restoration project in Koggala, a marine turtle conservation initiative in Panama, a partnership with Biodiversity Sri Lanka (BSL) to maintain a stretch of beach in Kalutara and numerous beach clean-up projects conducted by large numbers of the Bank’s staff across Sri Lanka.
Commercial Bank is the first Sri Lankan bank to be listed among the Top 1000 Banks of the World and has the highest market capitalization in the Banking Sector in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). The Bank is the largest lender to Sri Lanka’s SME sector, is a leader in digital innovation and is Sri Lanka’s first 100% carbon neutral bank. Commercial Bank operates a strategically located network of branches and automated machines island-wide, and has the widest international footprint among Sri Lankan banks, with 20 outlets in Bangladesh, a Microfinance company in Myanmar, and a fully-fledged Tier I Bank with a majority stake in the Maldives.
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