Environment

The sum total of all surroundings of a living organism, including natural forces and other living
things, which provide conditions for development and growth as well as of danger and damage.

Environmental Pollution
Environmental pollution is the contamination of the physical and biological components of
the earth/atmosphere system to such an extent that normal environmental processes are
adversely affected.

Environmental Pollution and Its Effects

One of the greatest problems that the world is facing today is that of environmental pollution,
increasing with every passing year and causing grave and irreparable damage to the earth.
Environmental pollution consists of five basic types of pollution, namely, air, water, soil, noise
and light.

Effects of Pollution
1

Human Health : The decrease in quality of air leads to several respiratory problems
including asthma or lung cancer. Chest pain, congestion are some of diseases that can be
causes by air pollution.
Water pollution occurs due to contamination of water and may pose skin related
problems including skin irritations and rashes.
Similarly Noise pollution leads to hearing loss, stress and sleep disturbance.

2. Global Warming : The emission of greenhouse gases particularly CO2 is leading to global
warming. Every other day new industries are being set up, new vehicles come on roads and trees
are cut to make way for new homes. All of them, in direct or indirect way lead to increase in
CO2 in the environment. The increase in CO2 leads to melting of polar ice caps which increases
the sea level and pose danger for the people living near coastal areas.

3. Infertile Land : Due to constant use of insecticides and pesticides, the soil may become
infertile. Plants may not be able to grow properly. Various forms of chemicals produced from
industrial waste is released into the flowing water which also affects the quality of soil.
Pollution not only affect humans, it also affects the nature, plants, fruits, vegetables, rivers,
ponds, forests, animals, etc, on which they are highly dependent for survival. It is crucial to
control pollution as the nature, wildlife and human life are precious gifts to the mankind.

The greenhouse effect

The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the
greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide CO2, which causes 9-26%;
methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a
certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the
various gases are not additive. Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous
oxide, sulfur hexafluoride and chlorofluorocarbons.

Green Banking
Defining green banking is relatively easy. It means promoting environmental-friendly practices
and reducing your carbon footprint from your banking activities. This comes in many forms.
Using online banking instead of branch banking. Paying bills online insteadofmailing them.
Opening up CDs and money market accounts at online banks, instead of large multi-branch
banks. Or finding the local bank in your area that is taking the biggest steps to support local
green initiatives.

Introducing Green finance

Eco friendly business activities and energy efficient industries will be given preference in
financing by bank. Environmental infrastructure such as renewable energy project, clean water
supply project, wastewater treatment plant, solid & hazardous waste disposal plant, bio-gas plant,
bio-fertilizer plant should be encouraged and financed by bank. Consumer loan programs may be
applied for promoting environmental practices among clients.

Creation of Climate Risk Fund

Bank should finance the economic activities of the flood, cyclone and drought prone areas at the
regular interest rate without charging additional risk premium. However, banks should assess
their environmental risks for financing the sectors in different areas for creating a Climate
Change Risk Fund. This will be used in case of emergency. The bank would ensure regular

financing flows in these vulnerable areas and sectors. The fund could be created as part of banks
CSR expenses.

Online Banking
Online banking is the practice of making bank transactions or paying bills via the Internet on a
secure website of the respective bank that allows the customers to make deposits,withdrawals
and pay bills.Banks should give more emphasis to make the easiest way to help environment
byeliminating paper waste, saving gas and carbon emission, reducing printing costs andpostage
expenses.

Supporting Employee Training, Consumer Awareness and Green Event

Employee awareness development and training on environmental and social risk and the relevant
issues should be a continuous process as part of the bank's Human Recourse Development.
Awareness development among consumers and clients would be a continuous job of a bank
under its public relation department.

Setting up Green Branches

A Green Branch should be featured by the provision of the maximum use of natural light, use of
renewable energy, use of energy saving bulbs and other equipments, reduced water and
electricity use, use of recycled water etc. Such a branch of a bank would be specifically
designated as a Green Branch. A Green Branch will be entitled to display a special logo
approved by Bangladesh Bank. The criteria for certification of a Green Branch will be
circulated by Bangladesh Bank in due course of time.

Disclosure and Reporting of Green Banking Activities

Banks should start publishing independent Green Banking and Sustainability reports showing
past performances, current activities, and future initiatives. Updated and detailed information
about banks environmental activities and performances of major clients should be disclosed.

Green Banking activities

In Social Islami Bank Limited

Social Islami Bank was founded in 1995 as Social Investment Bank Limited and changed its
name to the present one on August 2009. SIBL has been running its activities through its 72

branches all over the country. It provides Islami banking facilities to its customers under the
supervision of a strong jury board. It provides all formal commercial banking services to people.

Purpose
The overall purpose of Environmental Risk Management is to understand and manage risk that
arises from environmental concerns.
The specific purposes are to:
Examine the environmental issues for financing
Identify, evaluate and manage the environmental risk
Enhance the credit/investment risk appraisal process

Approach
The following approaches have been used to enhance environmental risk management:
Banks should be able to ascertain risks arising out of environmental issues.
Bank will use Environmental Risk Management to strengthen the relationship with the
customer and not to create unease.
Environmental Risk Management will focus on managing risks and not on avoiding risks.
As per Bangladesh Banks guideline, EXIM Bank has developed and passed a comprehensive
Green Banking Policy and taken following steps showing general commitment on environment
through in-house performance.

Online banking is a green banking

Bank is giving more emphasis to make the easiest way to help environment by eliminating paper
waste, saving gas and carbon emission, reducing printing costs and postage expenses. Meantime
all the branches of the Bank have included under the system of online banking.

Bank Asia has been launched by a group of successful entrepreneurs with recognized standing in
the society. The management of the Bank consists of a team led by senior bankers with decades
of experience in national and international markets. The senior management team is ably
supported by a group of professionals many of whom have exposure in the international market.
It set milestone by acquiring the business operations of the Bank of Nova Scotia in Dhaka, first
in the banking history of Bangladesh. It again repeated the performance by acquiring the
Bangladesh operations of Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd. (MCB), a Pakistani bank.
In the year 2003 the Bank again came to the limelight with oversubscription of the Initial Public
Offering of the shares of the Bank, which was a record (55 times) in our capital market's history
and its shares commands respectable premium.
The asset and liability growth has been remarkable. Bank Asia has been actively participating in
the local money market as well as foreign currency market without exposing the Bank to
vulnerable positions. The Bank's investment in Treasury Bills and other securities went up
noticeably opening up opportunities for enhancing income in the context of a regime of gradual
interest rate decline.
Bank Asia Limited started its service with a vision to serve people with modern and innovative
banking products and services at affordable charge. Being parallel to the cutting edge technology
the Bank is offering online banking with added delivery channels like ATM, Tele-banking, SMS
and Net Banking. And as part of the bank's commitment to provide all modern and value added
banking service in keeping with the very best standard in a globalize world.

Bank Asia and Green Banking

We aspire to establish us as a prominent institution that will operate to reach our long term
strategic objective to be a green, triple bottom line bank where every decision will be taken with
both financial and environmental considerations in mind. We have unified our sustainable
operations under one roof by forming Green Banking Unit equipped with permanent
employees. Our Green Banking Policy Guidelines and Green Office Guide have been circulated
to all our employees for creating awareness on Green Banking activities & providing instructions
about conserving energy, water, saving paper, etc.
As a Bank we play an intermediary role between economic development and conservation of the
environment. Our Green Banking activities are on multidimensional areas which include both inhouse environment management and undertaking Green Financing towards supporting Green
Economy:
Green Finance:

We are witnessing early stages of Green Technology and we have ventured into this arena as well
as other environment friendly projects as evidenced by the following initiatives:

As part of our commitment for our Green Economy we have signed

a Participation Agreement with Bangladesh Bank under refinance
scheme on August 10, 2011 for lending in Solar Energy, Bio- Gas,
Effluent Treatment Plant & Hybrid Hoffman Kiln (HHK).
a) Financing to the tune of Tk. 39.3 million to SSL Ceramic Bricks Ltd. towards setting up of Brick
manufacturing project using HHK technology with a capacity of manufacturing 0.84 million
bricks per month.
b) Financing to the tune of Tk. 346.81 million to EETA & Tiles to produce brick using HHK
Technology which has the capacity to manufacture 66,000,000 pieces of brick per year which will
reduce approximately 22,000 tons of CO2 yearly.
c) Financing of Tk. 180.12 million to H. Auto Bricks Limited which envisages of setting of a
modern, environment friendly & energy efficient Brick Manufacturing project utilizing Hybrid
Hoffmann Kiln Technology with a capacity of 120,000 pieces auto bricks per day.
d) Bank Asia also financed Tk. 207.80 million (funded Tk. 191.10 million and non- funded Tk.
157.80 million) to Auto-bricks & Ceramics Pvt. Ltd., a sister concern of RAK Group, which
envisages of setting up a Brick manufacturing project with the Tunnel Kiln technology which is
the most energy efficient technology in this industry across the world. The project will have a
production capacity of 1, 00,000 pieces of brick per day.
In the first nine month of this year (2012) we have lent Tk. 6,040.45 million for 37 projects having
installation of Effluent Treatment Plant that will help to reduce the discharge of untreated factory
waste water into the rivers. Earlier Bank Asias client Echotex Ltd. achieved the National
Environment Award 2010 for environment pollution control by establishing Bank Asia financed
Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) and was awarded by Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
In 2011, Bank Asia disbursed an amount of Tk. 96.43 million through rural Branches and NGOs for
cultivating various types of crops which benefitted around 6,576 farmers and during the first nine
months of 2012 we have disbursed Tk. 237.05 million to 16,655 farmers, which helps sequestration
of Carbon.
Bank Asia as the Lead Arranger is in the process of raising fund under Syndication arrangement for
establishing paper converting bag manufacturing plant for Propac Ltd. and Packaging World Ltd.
These will be the first of its kind of industry in our country for producing and exporting
environmental friendly food bags to USA & Canada -the biggest markets for the products. The
entrepreneurs have taken necessary steps to maintain high standards of manufacturing process to
meet stringent quality standards of these markets. These projects would promote green banking
initiatives through low carbon emitting production process, as recycled papers would be used as raw
materials for production of finished goods, leading to conservation of trees. In this two projects Bank
Asia has approved financing of Tk. 200.00 million.

Bank Asia has been one of the pioneers in

introducing Online Banking and it covers 74
branches/ SME centers, 68 own ATMs, 2890
shared ATMs. Clients can also have access to their
accounts through Internet & Mobile Banking.
Bank Asia has been equipped with Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH) system since
October 2010, which allows paperless cheque clearing.
Instruments of Green Banking offered by Cards Division include E-Statement, SMS Banking, SMS
Alert, Net Banking, E Fund Transfer, Digital Attendance and E Mail corresponding, which help
reducing printing paper.
Our Cards Department has formally launched its digital filling system where more than 200,000
pages of various files have been digitally archived and indexed it for digital query.
We are saving around 32% electricity (used for lighting purpose) by using the day light in our
Corporate Office. We have installed Solar panels in our 7 branches located at Patherhat, Madhobdi,
Dohajari, Hajigonj, Faridpur, Elephant Road and Lalmatia branches.
In an alliance with a Canadian firm AlertPay, Bank Asia is the first local bank to introduce an easy
online payment gateway service that will allow the country's IT freelancers to bring their dollars
deposited in the accounts with AlertPay in any of their bank accounts in the country through Bank
Asia at cheaper rate.
Bank Asia is the 10th private commercial bank to launch Express cash system which is easier and
faster domestic remittance service.
Bank Asia is a pioneer in rolling out Online Learning Tool (OLT). Our Human Resources
Department (HRD) implemented OLT by which the trainees can learn from their own work station
without attending any formal class.
Other Activities on Green Banking:

We have also incorporated environment friendly and resource saving initiatives into our
banking operations as follows:

Disclosure & Reporting of Green Banking Activities:

In view of highlighting our Green Banking

activities and creating awareness amongst our
stakeholders, this year Half Yearly Financial
Position, 2012 incorporates Green Banking
concept. This report reflects the major activities of
Green Banking arena and the key activities of our
Sustainable Banking Operations.
Our Annual report, 2011 and Annual report, 2010 we have been published with separate section on
our Green Banking activities & Sustainable operations.
We have commemorated this years World Environment Day by arranging Workshop at our
Corporate Office in Dhaka, which was simultaneously linked by Video Conferencing with
Chittagong Zone.
We have arranged two day workshop on Credit Appraisal System & Green Banking in 3 phases.
Two of our employees from Finance & Accounts attended training program on "Global Reporting
Initiatives (GRI)" held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 25th September, 2012- 27th September,
2012. As per Bangladesh Bank policy on Green Banking, Banks are to publish independent annual
report as per GRI format upcoming third phase.

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, which commits its Parties by setting internationally

binding emission reduction targets.

Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels
of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial
activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of
"common but differentiated responsibilities."
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into
force on 16 February 2005. Its first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012.

Conclusion
As a Bank Social Islami Bank & Bank Asia play an intermediary role between economic
development and conservation of the environment. Their Green Banking activities are on
multidimensional areas which include both in-house environment management and undertaking
Green Financing towards supporting Green Economy.