“Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”; this is the rallying call from the United Nations (UN) in the wake of the world’s recovery from the Covid -19 pandemic.

According to the UN, the climate crisis continues largely unabated. The concentrations of greenhouse gases continued to increase in 2020, reaching new record highs with the global average temperature about 1.2°C, above the 1850–1900 baseline.

In the wake of these stark realities and to contribute to solving this problem, Societe Generale Ghana, in line with its group’s strategic objectives on Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) embarked on a tree planting exercise at the St. Mary’s Senior High School in Accra.

Welcoming the bank’s team to the school for this event, Headmistress of the school, Philomena Owusu-Ansah, thanked Societe Generale Ghana for choosing their school for this exercise.

She acknowledged the importance of this activity in support of the Sustainable Development Goal 13 and concluded with the popular adage that, “When the last tree dies, the last man dies”.

Hakim Ouzzani, the Managing Director of Societe Generale Ghana, expressed the bank’s appreciation to the Management of St. Mary’s school for availing their institution for this exercise.

 Mr. Ouzzani encouraged everyone in the country and the world to take up this responsibility adding that, if everyone worldwide planted a tree every year, we would regain most of the world’s forest cover in no time at all.

The tree planting exercise was done in collaboration with the Ghana Forestry Commission as part of the Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, to support the country reduce its carbon footprints, and mitigate climate change.

Sustainability plays a major role in all the Bank’s activities including its business endeavours through green financing and giving back to society through its CSR projects.