India’s largest bank system, State Bank of India (SBI) has released its Sustainability Report for the year 2019-20. This sustainability report, titled ‘Responsible Finance – Sustainable Growth’, comprehensively captures the Bank’s vision of contributing to a sustainably growing economy and practicing responsible finance. This is the fifth consecutive report.
SBI has also been contributing to various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by promoting economic growth, employment generation, gender equality, climate action and financial literacy through its range of products and services. Bank’s intervention in the financial inclusion space has been unmatched.
SBI has been pursuing financial literacy counselling targeted at farmers, SMEs, SHGs, school children and senior citizens through 341 Financial Literacy Counselling Centres across the country. Similarly, SBI Rural Self-Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs) are acting as social change agents, empowering rural youth in achieving sustainable livelihood through skill development and training, helping them to establish their own micro enterprises, thereby aiding rural employment and wealth creation.
The Bank is working to map its products to the SDGs in order to better explore the intervention possibilities for sustainable impact. Likewise, to build up the momentum for electric mobility transition, the Bank has been financing e-Rickshaws and launched the Green Car Loan product for financing electric vehicles (EVs).
Here are 15 key points of SBI Sustainability Report towards Sustainability of business for the year 2019-20:
1. Solar Project: Rs. 1,744 crore sanctioned under the World Bank line of credit for 241 Solar Photovoltaic (PV)
projects.
2. Data Management: 22,963 Physical data servers migrated to cloud environments.
3. Corporate Social Responsibility: Rs. 27.47 crore spent on CSR projects and activities in FY 2019-20.
4. Green Bonds: Bank has issued $800 million Aggregate Green Bonds.
5. Emission Reduction: Estimated annual emission reduction due to projects funded by SBI’s Green Bonds stood at 1.6 million tones of CO2.
6. E-Vehicle: Rs. 14.31 crore loan portfolio financing over 1,100 e-vehicles.
7. Energy Saving: 44GWh cumulative energy saved by IPM+ desktop software implementation.
8. Gender equality: 3500 branches are headed by women.
9. Rural Training: 152 Rural Self-Employment Training Institutes established across India.
10. Financial Literacy: 29,995 financial literacy camps conducted through 341 literacy centres.
11. Paper Saving: 300 tonnes of paper saved through YONO digital application in FY-2019-20, saving 7,900 trees
12. Agriculture Loan: Over 4.78 lakh Agriculture Gold Loan sanctioned through YONO Krishi since its introduction in July 2019
13. Linkage: 1.32 Crore self help Groups (SHGs) having bank linkage.
14. Green PINs: 6.41 crore Green PINs generated in FY 2019-20, indirectly saving 8,12 trees
15. Employee Training: 56.23 hours average training hours per employee during the year.
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