SABB is a Friend of the Environment

To enhance its pioneering role as a friend to the environment and its pledge to protect it, SABB has introduced some initiatives to control his day-to-day operations and to bring environmental awareness to his staff.

As part of SABB commitment to ensure that our impact on the environment is reduced to minimum we applied international technical and constructional standards in building our head office extension. Following are some of the norms applied:

Environmental programmes

Saudi Wildlife Commission

SABB sponsors a range of programmes organised by Saudi Wildlife Commission (SWC). These programmes aim to raise environmental awareness among Saudis. They highlight the positive role that Saudi people can play not only in conservation projects, protecting wildlife and the environment, but also in educating the younger generation.

SABB sponsors scientific teams to study the negative effects of human activity on marine environments around the Kingdom, as well as the cultivation of mangrove flora and the ways in which they can be protected from extinction.

World Environment Day

SABB participates in the World Environment Day, held annually on 5 June. This aims to raise the community’s awareness of the importance of taking serious steps to protect the environment. The Bank has been implementing policies to control paper and plastic waste, as well as to reduce energy and water usage.

Earth Hour

Every year, SABB participates in the international ‘Earth Hour’ initiative which takes place on the last Saturday of March and is supervised by the global conservation organisation, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The Bank participates in several locations across the Kingdom by switching off non-essential lights and highlighting to its employees the problems of global warming and encouraging individuals to turn off non-essential lights and appliances for one hour to save energy.

Desert Cleaning

SABB employees regularly volunteer in the ‘Cleaning One Million Square Metres’ project that was initiated by the Riyadh Municipality. The project encourages everyone to take responsibility for keeping the environment clean and raises social and environmental awareness among employees.

Beach Cleaning

The ‘Beach Cleaning Campaign’ was initiated by the Bank in cooperation with the Municipality of Al Khobar at Half Moon Bay in the Eastern Region. The project is in place to increase environmental responsibility among citizens.

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Farasan Archaeology Project

This research is a fully collaborative Saudi-British project with the full backing of Saudi and British institutions and authorities. The research is supervised by professionals from the department of Antiquity and Archaeology at King Saud University and the department of archaeology at University of York in UK.

The project investigated the early archaeology and prehistory of the red sea coastline over the past 1 million years to understand the early developments in human history especially that the red sea was an easy pathway for migration between Africa and the Eurasia.

The British Council Project: North-South-East-West

SABB sponsored the North-South-East-West Project organised by the British Council during November – December 2007. The event aimed to raise the awareness of the Saudi public about the climate changes and its impact on the environment and consequently on human lives. Amongst the activities of this event, a photography competition and a slogan competition for Saudi youth Kingdom wide were organised, in addition to an exhibition that was held in the Radisson SAS hotel - Riyadh.

SABB is a Friend of the Environment

Installed floors containing recycled manufacturing materials
The de-watering will be used for flush tanks and irrigation in both buildings
All external glazing and walls have high insulation properties to reduce heat exchange
All lights are connected to timers via Building Management System to rationalize use
Re-used marble cladding removed from the old building for cladding the new head office
Installed infrared taps (motion detection) to save water
Installed extra fresh AHUs to pump extra cold air to the building during winter to save cooling by chillers hence save power

Reduce paper waste

In line with the bank's commitment to preserve the environment, and to fast track SABB move towards a paper-less environment, following actions were taken:

Discontinue the process of printing and filing of some systems reports because these can be viewed and actioned electronically.
Set automatic double-side printing on printers wherever it's appropriate.
Discourage print out of internal correspondence and external as well.
Introduction of dry and wet waste bins to improve recycling of paper.
An internal staff awareness campaign was launched to reduce paper wastes, to save water consumption, to conserve energy and to reduce impact on climate changes.

Saving water

Changed water taps to infrared in SABB premises kingdom wide.
Adjusted automatic water taps at 5 seconds interval to reduce water consumption.
Usage of under ground water for toilets whenever possible.
Changed toilets flushing systems with lower water consumption system.

Conserving energy

Replaced old monitors where applicable with LCD monitors.
Installed light sensors to schedule light switch off in SABB premises after end of working hours to avoid any excess consumption of power.

Combat climate change

Reduced staff business travel by using video conferencing for business meeting with our partners and vendours.
Implemented non-smoking policy in all SABB premises kingdom wide.

SABB e-greeting card

SABB has designed Eid e-greeting cards to be used by different bank's departments / areas, to replace the traditional paper cards, and consequently assists in saving trees and preserving the environment.