The Saudi British Bank participated in the Saudi Green Initiative Forum under the theme “From Ambition to Action,” held alongside the global climate summit COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The participation is in line with the bank’s efforts and effective contributions in the environmental, social, and governance field.
The second edition of the forum brought together climate leaders and experts who highlighted the steps taken over the past year toward achieving the Kingdom’s ambitious national targets and laid out the roadmap for the coming years.
Tony Cripps, managing director and CEO of SABB, spoke about the Kingdom’s movement toward sustainability and SABB’s commitment to these principles, as well as its role as a leading financial institution in supporting various institutions in the public, private and nonprofit sectors to achieve sustainable development and providing supportive financing solutions for its corporate clients. He also commended the Saudi Central Bank for its role in regulating and assisting the financial sector toward achieving sustainable growth in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
Cripps highlighted current collaboration with the Saudi Central Bank in forming an ESG advisory committee to drive a standardized set of ESG taxonomies and green solutions.
He also emphasized that SABB is committed to allocating capital to sustainable loans and green funds, especially given the growing interest of institutions in the Kingdom to implement sustainability principles and standards, including financial solutions in their various forms, such as loans, bonds, deposits, and green funds, as these markets have grown exponentially over the past years.
SABB’s participation comes from its pioneering role in environmental projects, most notably the implementation of its initiative to plant 1 million trees across the Kingdom, the largest environmental initiative in the financial sector, in cooperation with Murooj Foundation, the executive arm of the National Center for the Development of Vegetation Cover and Combating Desertification.
ESG and sustainability are key to SABB’s five-year strategy, along with supporting new projects that will help the Kingdom achieve a more sustainable future.
SABB is one of the leading banks in financial innovation, established in 1978 as a Saudi joint stock company. It is an associate company of the HSBC Group.
It offers integrated financial and banking services including personal banking, corporate banking, private banking and investment and treasury services. SABB’s paid-up capital is SR20.5 billion ($5.46 billion).
