Marking a major milestone in its unwavering dedication towards achieving carbon neutrality in near future, Sri Lanka’s No.01 Bank, Bank of Ceylon has been awarded with the ISO 14064-1:2018 certification for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission encompassing the Bank’s extensive network of offices and branches.
In line with the BOC’s aspirations to become a carbon-neutral bank, the Bank finalized a comprehensive Carbon Management Plan in 2022 while putting in place new strategies for measurement, mitigation, and management of its carbon footprint.
Bank of Ceylon has already initiated numerous actions to increase the natural capital of the Bank which includes energy saving at branch levels and use of renewable energy, compliance to green building concepts, encouraging the Bank’s staff with carpooling and staff transport to combat the fuel crisis and introducing of Solar Loans.
The Global warming has become an overwhelming environmental issue due to release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere by man-made activities , which has resulted in increasing atmospheric emissions. Therefore, BOC early on has joined the global efforts to combat GHG emissions by making it a priority task to become more environmentally friendly and conscious. These efforts are also combined with Bank’s tree planting campaigns that were conducted at large scale and at branch level.
BOC as a leading carbon conscious bank has been measuring and reporting its GHG emissions since 2018. In taking a further step in this direction towards carbon neutrality, the Bank decided to measure and report GHG emissions for 2022 covering the Bank’s head office, provincial offices and 571 branches (Including extensions and regional loan centers) and quarters in provinces.
The operational GHG emission of the Bank, for the one year period starting from 1st of January 2022 to 31st of December 2022 ,was calculated by a third-party assessment by Climate Smart Initiative (PVT) Ltd and verified by the third-party independent verification by Sri Lanka Climate Fund (Pvt) Ltd in accordance to with ISO 14064-1:2018 as meeting the requirements of the ISO 14064-1:2018.
Consequently, the Bank has been awarded a ‘reasonable level’ of assurance. Under the scope 1, scope 2, Scope 3 and Scope 4 emissions of the Bank Head Office building, all province offices, all branches, SME Centers and Regional Loan Centers of the Bank. The total carbon footprint of the Bank for 2022 was 27,333 tCO2e while per capita emissions and emission intensity stood at 3.33 tCO2e per person and 0.18 tCO2e per million rupees respectively (considering direct and indirect emissions).
The reporting of organizational level GHG emissions based on data accordance with ISO 14064-1-2018 and United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) considered to be more comprehensive as it includes not only direct GHG emissions but also wide range of indirect GHG emissions, which are not within the control of the organization. As per the ISO 14064-1 GHG Assessment guidelines the Bank already adheres and ensures to maintain the reporting requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards which the Bank accurately reports its sustainability aspects in its Annual Report, quantified utility usage related data of the Bank.
