NAIROBI, Kenya, May 27 – The Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Foundation is investing Sh10.4million to support environmental conservation activities on Saturday.
Addressing a media briefing at Kencom House, the KCB Group Chief Executive Martin Oduor-Otieno said that KCB is keen to support global reforestation programme to beef up the planet vegetation cover.
“On Saturday all KCB branches and administrative units in Kenya and Uganda will be planting indigenous trees in over 113 forest sites. In Kenya, Head Office and Nairobi branches will plant 30,000 seedlings in Ngong forest while other branches are involved at various government and community forests as well as schools bringing to about 150,000 trees,” he said.
Southern Sudan and Tanzania will conduct their environmental activities at the appropriate time in the course of the year as this is a year-long campaign while Rwanda will undertake tree planting during the World Environmental Day which will be celebrated in that country.
The KCB Group Chief Executive said the Foundation earlier in the year had a joint tree planting exercise with Egerton University in which 20,000 indigenous seedlings were planted.
“We are discussing a partnership with UNEP and the Kenya Armed Forces in order to plant more trees at Kenya’s water catchment areas in the coming days,” he added.
The Foundation targets to plant over three million in the next three years.
The Chief Executive said that a significant amount of CSR funding goes towards environmental conservation activities because it is a key priority focus in community support programmes.
“Environment is one of the three core areas of community support for KCB (environment, education and enterprise development) where 80% of our CSR budget goes. The others are health and humanitarian support,” said Mr Oduor-Otieno.
The KCB Foundation this year has budgeted Sh100million to address the needs of the communities which will be facilitated heavily through partnerships.
The Friends of the KCB Foundation was launched last Friday to establish strong mutually supportive partnerships that will deliver effective and more impactful solutions to needy communities.
“This is the first of its kind in Kenya and we are optimistic that it proves to be a great vehicle for providing CSR support for the bank and our partners,” he concluded.
