The bank also unveiled a ‘Green Office Manual—A Guide to Sustainable Practices’ prepared in association with the Centre for Environmental Research and Education (CERE).
The bank has a comprehensive plan to reduce its carbon footprint, which includes solar-powered ATMs, thin computing, e-archiving, e-learning, e-waste management, paperless fax, energy conservation, CNG cars and also supporting finance programs with incentives to go green. The goal of the green banking initiative is to promote sustainable business practices to offset the effects of climate change through energy and resource conservation.
Other banks like State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank (PNB), and Central Bank of India are also promoting green concepts by providing soft and easy loans and adopting eco-friendly steps at their own levels.
In an effort to be eco-friendly, PNB has stopped issuance of circulars in papers by making all its guidelines and circulars available to its staff es through its internal site. The bank has replaced its generators with dual generators which work on sunshine. The same technique has also been used by the bank for running some of its ATMs in rural areas.
