NDB promotes good habits for environmental sustainability

At NDB, good corporate citizenship is considered as a lifestyle. Thus, environmental responsibility is identified as one of the key components of its sustainability efforts which are embedded to the bank’s core strategy. This is evident in the manner it integrates progressive initiatives which foster conservation into the bank’s day to day business.

NDB has taken the concept of ‘environmental responsibility’ a notch further by making it a socially inclusive activity through its unique savings proposition. Moving beyond the conventional idea of saving, NDB introduced a unique concept to foster the savings habit amongst people of all ages.

This dynamic proposition extended the thought process beyond traditional monetary savings and demonstrated how simple actions that save natural resources could translate into a financial savings in the long term. This concept was spread across the island through a national educational campaign themed ‘Ithiri Karamu, Api Hademu, Rata Hadamu’.

To take this idea further NDB has distributed a handy ‘savings booklet’ that offers useful tips on how to optimize the benefits and minimize waste of common everyday essentials. From electricity and water to telephone bills and fuel, this pocket sized booklet contains tips that can be practiced daily basis in order to discount the continuous, unconscious wastage of national resources.

Effects of recycling

NDB practices and ongoing initiative, implemented in collaboration with Neptune Papers (Pvt.) Ltd., whereby every possible scrap of waste paper is retrieved for recycling. In the year 2012, the bank sent 26,316kg of waste paper for recycling which translated to astounding savings quantified as a 447 fully grown trees, 836,322 litres of water, 105,264kwh of electricity, 46,185 Litres of oil and 79 cubic meters of land fill as well as a reduction of Green House Gas emission by 26,346kg of Carbon Equivalent.

Preservation of precious energy

Being mindful of it carbon footprint has enabled NDB to neutralize and minimize the adverse effects of its operations on the environment. As a result of the ‘energy audit’ conducted by the bank, it has implemented measures to minimize the energy consumption and usage of resources.

One of the most significant of such initiatives was the installation of an energy efficient centralized air conditioning system which is closely monitored for prudent operation and is shut down when not required. The illumination appliances have been replaced with low energy consuming devices and this is complemented with the bank’s “Switch off when not required,” policy.

Most of the bank’s fleet of vehicles have been converted to run on LP Gas which has considerably contributed to the reduction of NDB’s carbon footprint.