SABB In The Environment

SABB in the Community

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:

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 cistern, hence saved fresh water
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 Employees participate in "Cleaning One Million Square Meters"

SABB employees participated on 24 April 2008 in "Cleaning One Million Square Meters" drive, initiated by Riyadh Municipality, in an attempt to maintain a clean environment. This drive comes under "SABB in the community Programme" to clean one million square meters at Al-Thumamah area in Riyadh.

The Bank's participation in this drive, comes from its deep rooted believe in the aims of such campaigns, that goes along with SABB's strategy to improve and enhance the environment in which we live. It also highlights the Bank's role as a friend of the environment.

SABB Participates in combating Global Warming

SABB has participated in the "Earth Hour 2008" , run by the World Wildlife Fund "WWF", the conservation organization. Earth Hour, is a global climate change initiative to combat global warming.

The campaign calls on individuals and establishments to turn off the non-essential lights for 1 hour - between 8 pm and 9 pm. on 29 March 2008, to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

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 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.