As part of its con­tin­ued ef­forts to com­bat cli­mate change, in the lead up to World En­vi­ron­ment Day (June 5), Sco­tia­bank has ex­pand­ed its part­ner­ship with the SURE Foun­da­tion to in­clude fruit tree plant­i­ngs at chil­dren’s homes across the coun­try.

A re­lease from Sco­tia­bank re­ports that 150 trees were plant­ed at 19 chil­dren’s homes across the coun­try.

Sco­tia­bank em­ploy­ees al­so got in­volved, help­ing to plant man­go, bread­fruit, chataigne and sapodil­la trees, in what the bank says is an im­por­tant ini­tia­tive to help dri­ve pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tion.

Pres­i­dent of SURE Foun­da­tion, Re­bec­ca Gookool, ob­serves it is all about food se­cu­ri­ty.

“The SURE Foun­da­tion takes the po­si­tion that the food se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in T&T re­quires ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion which changes the fa­mil­iar­i­ty with agri­cul­ture at the house­hold lev­el. Giv­en this con­text, we are of the firm view that this in­ter­ven­tion, in part­ner­ship with Sco­tia­bank, was mean­ing­ful and had the ben­e­fit of get­ting per­sons, in­clud­ing youth, more ex­cit­ed about agri­cul­ture,” she said.

Glob­al­ly, Sco­tia­bank has ex­pand­ed its Net Ze­ro Re­search Fund to $10 mil­lion Cana­di­an dol­lars, to ad­vance part­ner­ships with lead­ing think-tanks and aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions that are sup­port­ing key sec­tors in their ef­forts to de­car­bonize.  

Launched in 2021, the Fund is an ini­tia­tive that will ad­vance re­search and lead­er­ship in sup­port of glob­al de­car­boniza­tion as part of the Bank's Cli­mate Com­mit­ments. The 2022 Call for Sub­mis­sions are open from June 2 to Ju­ly 14, 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to Gayle Pa­zos, Se­nior Vice-Pres­i­dent and Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go, the bank is us­ing its ca­chet to high­light en­vi­ron­ment is­sues.

“There is #On­ly­One Earth and we un­der­stand the role we play in us­ing our plat­form to raise aware­ness on en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues. I am pleased that our em­ploy­ees con­tin­ue to sup­port ef­forts to strength­en do­mes­tic food se­cu­ri­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, while in­creas­ing the re­moval of car­bon diox­ide from the at­mos­phere,” she said.

She added: “We’re al­so proud to be a part of a glob­al Bank that is wel­com­ing fund­ing ap­pli­ca­tions by lo­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions fo­cused on cli­mate change and we hope to see many or­gan­i­sa­tions take ad­van­tage of this op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

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Learn more about Sco­tia­bank’s Net Ze­ro Re­search Fund, here…  https://www.sco­tia­bank.com/ca/en/about/re­spon­si­bil­i­ty-im­pact/cli­mate-com­mit­ments/cli­mate-change-cen­tre-of-ex­cel­lence.html