AFC’s ‘One million trees for unity’ project wins top sustainability award

From left: Tom Hoyem - Town Council Member in Karlsruhe and former Cabinet Minister of Denmark, Vivekachandran Darma - Consul of Sri Lanka in Germany accepting the award on behalf of Alliance Finance Co PLC, Arshad Rab, Chairman, International Council of Sustainability Standards for Value-Driven Financial Institutions and CEO of European Organisation for Sustainable Development, Germany

Alliance Finance Co. PLC, (AFC) recently clinched yet another international award for sustainability. The project which helped AFC win this important award was the ‘One million trees for unity’ project.

AFC bagged its third sustainability award for the year 2021 at the Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Awards 2021 conducted by the European Organisation for Sustainable Development (EOSD).

The ‘One million trees for unity’ project which was initiated by AFC in 2018, aims to plant one-million tress across Sri Lanka by 2025. This project mainly aims to reduce the carbon foot print of Sri Lanka by 120,000 metric tons by the year 2030. 

“We are truly honored to be the recipient of this prestigious award. We at AFC, constantly thrive to be the best at what we do and this award is a testament to that. We look forward to continuing and improving our sustainable finance activities in the new year and increasing the positive impact we make on the sustainable development of our nation,” said AFC Deputy Chairman and Managing Director Romani de Silva commenting on the award.
The project provides a significant contribution to Sri Lanka’s National Bonn challenge; which aims to increase the forest cover of Sri Lanka to reach 32 percent by 2030. 

Under this project, AFC has planted over 380,000 plants to date in partnership with the Road Development Authority (RDA), Lion’s Club, Tri forces of Sri Lanka, various Universities, schools, places of worship, municipal councils and urban councils. 

These plants are spread across all highways, road networks, the Norochcholai power plant, schools and especially places of worship. This project also has created several social benefits to its stakeholders one of which is empowering the social entrepreneurs and facilitating livelihood development. 

AFC has also financially sponsored an initiative by the RDA to create a dedicated website and mobile application to track the tree planting programmes initiated by RDA. 

It was for reasons such as this, that AFC’s ‘one million trees for unity’ project was judged and presented with this award.