By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Over 100,000 plastic bottles were picked and removed from the Lagos Kids Beach Garden within the Oba Elegushi beach environs after Unity Bank Plc in partnership with Recycling Scheme for Women and Youth Empowerment, (RESWAYE), MEDIC and KBG cleaned the beach.
The cleaning was done in commemoration of this year’s World Earth Day as part of the commitments to promote environmental sustainability.
No fewer than 200 members of staff, as well as over 100 members of RESWAYE thronged the venue of the cleaning exercise, where they picked and removed over 100,000 plastic bottles from the beach to make the beach safer and reduce ocean pollution.
The Bank also carried out a tree planting exercise across the country, as the Staff of the Bank across the bank’s branches nationwide planted at least one tree.
Speaking at the event, the Group Head, Risk Management, Unity Bank Plc, Mr. Chris Nwambu said that the World Earth Day initiatives are part of the Bank’s corporate social responsibility aimed at leading major collaborative initiatives for climate action.
Citing recent reports on ocean pollution, he decried that “of the over 300 million tons of plastic waste ends up in ocean’s yearly, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic enters our oceans. There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste estimated to be in our oceans. While 70% of our debris sinks into the ocean’s ecosystem, 15% floats, and 15% lands on our beaches.”
He reiterated that Unity Bank will continue to be very aggressive in terms of environmental protection and sustainability commitments, adding that “in line with the Bank’s agribusiness strategic focus over the past couple of years, the Bank has granted access to credit to businesses in greenhouse farming and metal recycling to the tune of 3.25 billion naira”.
He said, “But beyond supporting sustainability-related business, the operations of the Bank have adopted sustainable practices in the way we carry out daily activities as a matter of corporate culture. As of today, thirty-one branches of the bank are running on Hybrid Solar Solution while 70% of our 416 ATMs Bank-wide are powered by hybrid solar solutions with a projection to migrate an additional 15% to hybrid solar solutions before the end of 2022.
“The reduction of carbon emissions by the bank since migrating branches and ATMs locations to Hybrid Solar Energy in 2018 now totals 21,631kg of Carbon Dioxide, saved monthly.”