08 September 2020
The Summit’s new format, through a short series of webinars, allows for a larger audience from the local and ASEAN community
Kuala Lumpur: CIMB Group Holdings Berhad (“the Group” or “CIMB”) is hosting The Cooler Earth Sustainability Summit (“TCE”) for the second year from 8 September – 31 October 2020. Themed Recovery, Resilience and Responsibility, the summit aims to promote the exchange of ideas and encourage adoption of sustainable business models and lifestyles to enable businesses and communities to emerge stronger and better prepared for future challenges, post-pandemic. This year, in consideration of the current situation, CIMB is bringing the Sustainability Summit online via webinars and masterclasses, complemented by experiential learning sessions for more “hands-on” participation.
Together with knowledge partners, WWF, Impacto and Think City, TCE will continue the conversation from last year, to highlight the urgent need for transformative adoption of sustainable practices among leading practitioners, global experts, leaders, financiers, investors, policy-makers and individuals. Some of the key speakers that will be highlighting pandemic-related, policy-making and climate emergency topics at the TCE 2020 webinars will include renowned sustainability gurus, John Elkington, author of The Triple Bottom-line, and Director General of WWF International, Marco Lambertini. Also speaking will be Dato’ Seri Ir. Dr. Zaini Ujang, Secretary-General of Ministry of Environment and Water Malaysia, Melissa Tan, Zero Waste Practitioner, and Datin Seri Sunita Rajakumar, Founding Member of the Climate Governance Initiative, Malaysian Chapter. Additionally, participants can also look forward to experiential learning activities, throughout the eight weeks, such as nature education and heritage walks, curated experiences and tours, and engaging workshops across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. These immersive sessions will allow participants ASEAN-wide to learn on-site how their actions today will directly impact the well-being of current and future generations.
Dato’ Abdul Rahman Ahmad, Group Chief Executive Officer, CIMB Group said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all segments of society badly, directly impacting the lives and livelihood of those around us. For CIMB, we learnt quickly that the main concern was not just about the sustainability of our business but also that of our customers, clients and stakeholders in order for us to all to weather this situation successfully together. Sustainability is one of CIMB’s Forward23 key pivots, and this year, more than ever, we felt the need to enhance the focus on sustainability to affect change for our common future. Together, we must take immediate action and make better decisions to minimise the impact of the pandemic on the economy, social and environment, and this can only be done if we approach it in a holistic manner.”
“As a founding member of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (“UNEP-FI”) Principles for Responsible Banking, CIMB aims to use TCE as one of the platforms to catalyse action amongst businesses, communities and individuals. We feel strongly that everyone has a role to play in this journey and we hope that the conversations at The Cooler Earth 2020 will benefit more participants while creating potential opportunities for partnerships and long-term value,” Abdul Rahman added.
Last year, CIMB successfully organised the sustainability summit through a full two-day panel discussion and dialogue which benefitted 1,250 delegates from 554 organisations. Some notable milestones from the summit was the introduction of CIMB’s SME Renewable Energy Financing with a RM100 million allocation until 2020, the issuance of CIMB’s SDG bond at a value of USD680 million, which has been fully utilised to finance CIMB Bank’s lending assets in line with the CIMB SDG Bond Framework, as well as an over 80% utilisation on the commitment of RM15 billion for SME financing from 2019-2020.
CIMB aims to expand its Positive Impact Products & Services (“PIPS”) offerings with the objective of creating value whilst also benefiting communities in line with Bank Negara Malaysia’s Value Based Intermediation (VBI) initiatives. In this regard, CIMB will be making a series of announcements of new sustainable products, initiatives and milestones progressively throughout TCE 2020. One notable addition to our suite of PIPS is motor takaful managed by Takaful Ikhlas General Berhad (“TIGB”). This is supplemented by a dedicated Motor Takaful Waqf initiative by CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad (“CIMB Islamic”) to start a seed fund which will be used to purchase bicycles for students from underserved communities to go to school. The initiative started on 7 September 2020, and CIMB Islamic will provide an upfront RM100,000 contribution to commence the seed fund. CIMB Islamic will allocate an additional RM50 to the fund for each successful online subscription of the motor takaful via CIMB Website until 31 December 2020.
The Cooler Earth Sustainability Summit 2020 is open to all and participation is free-of-charge. Subtitles in Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, Simplified Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese language will be made available for all online sessions. To register and obtain the full programme, details of activities, topics and speakers, please visit https://coolerearth.cimb.com/.
