About
Going beyond Carbon and becoming the First Commercial Bank in Egypt and Africa to address all 3 areas (Land, Carbon and Water) footprint
Innovation presentation
CIB works to measure, reduce, and improve its environmental footprint. By regulating our emissions, ensuring the safe removal and management of our waste, and guaranteeing that our buildings comply with the highest possible standards for safety and environmental impact, we demonstrate our robust commitment to mitigating our negative impacts, conserving our environment, and encouraging our employees to do the same. In line with our commitment to having a responsible footprint, CIB continues using its “4M” model of measurement, monitoring, management, and mitigation.
CIB has been a pioneer bank, the first Egyptian bank to quantify and publish its GHG emissions back in 2017/2018 In 2019. We concluded measurements of all our 186 branches in our first consolidated carbon footprint report, in comparison to our coverage of 52 branches across only two governorates in 2018. CIB’s total carbon emissions associated with operations in Egypt totaled approximately 51,000 MtCO2e in 2018. An extensive carbon footprint assessment has been conducted for all branches distributed all over the country.
This year CIB has broadened its scope in the 2019-2020 report to include the bank’s Ecological Footprint. CIB understands that the decarbonization action plan that the bank developed and adopted should be based not only on the associated GHG reduction but should also account for the land footprint and water footprint reduction in order to establish correctly the priority actions, desired outcomes and impacts. We voluntarily chose to expand our reporting to include land and water footprints, besides our annual carbon footprint reporting. We aim to use our newfound knowledge of our ecological impact to better develop more sustainable business scenarios and embed Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles into our policies. CIB prides itself on being the first bank in Egypt (and Africa) to address all 3 areas
Uniqueness of the project
Ecological Footprint Analysis uniquely approaches the issue of sustainability by reference to the overall ‘carrying capacity’ of the planet. Thus, it is able to link individual behavior to organizational, regional and global targets using concepts such as the ‘earth share’ – the average, sustainable, bio productive capacity available per person. The ecological footprint indicator is shown to have several advantages: the single index provides for ease of communication and understanding; a variety of goods, activities and services can readily be assessed and compared; a link can easily be made between local and global consumption; an assessment of sustainability is possible; the relationship between different impacts can be explored; and values are based on ecological realities rather than arbitrary weightings. The annual footprint accounting report also enables CIB to benchmark performance indicators and evaluate progress over time.
CIB quantifies for the first time its Ecological Footprint, while highlighting three key sub-components:
Land Footprint (total amount of land use to provide resources), Carbon Footprint (total amount of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG); and Water Footprint (Total amount of directly and indirectly consumed water also considering water pollution impacts). It’s the first time for CIB also to quantify its water footprint. This allows us to answer a broad range of questions including but not limited to:
- How is water dependence distributed within CIB operations and supply chain
- How much reduction we could achieve in terms of negative environmental risks/impacts
