Re­pub­lic Bank has part­nered with Visa to host a Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Ex­po next month.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from Re­pub­lic, the land­mark event is set to place from Sep­tem­ber 13 to 14, 2024 at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya. The event aims to show­case the ex­ten­sive range of sus­tain­able prod­ucts and ser­vices be­ing of­fered by busi­ness­es with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

The re­lease said, "Themed “Trans­form­ing Talk In­to Ac­tion,” the Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Ex­po is a move away from tra­di­tion­al talk-shops, and in­stead, will en­able mem­bers of the pub­lic to en­gage di­rect­ly with lo­cal and glob­al sub­ject mat­ter ex­perts."

Re­pub­lic said that over 100 com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing 80 lo­cal Mi­cro, Small, and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (MSMEs), will show­case sus­tain­abil­i­ty-re­lat­ed prod­ucts and ser­vices across a wide range of in­dus­tries in­clud­ing:

• En­er­gy, In­dus­try, Man­u­fac­tur­ing

• Au­to­mo­tive, Ar­chi­tec­ture, Con­struc­tion

• Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices/De­vel­op­ment Banks, Ser­vices, Tech­nol­o­gy

• Tourism, Ed­u­ca­tion, and Well­ness

• Re­tail and Ar­ti­sans (Small and Mi­cro busi­ness­es).

Re­pub­lic Bank’s group pres­i­dent and CEO, Nigel Bap­tiste said, “As a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, we recog­nise the crit­i­cal role we play in sup­port­ing the tran­si­tion to a sus­tain­able econ­o­my. Tak­ing con­crete steps to­wards cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able fu­ture is a key strate­gic pri­or­i­ty for us. One il­lus­tra­tion of this is our pledge to in­vest US$200 mil­lion in cli­mate fi­nanc­ing by the year 2025. As at May of this year, we’ve in­vest­ed US$134 mil­lion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 per cent of that tar­get. Our in­au­gur­al Re­pub­lic Bank Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Ex­po is fur­ther ev­i­dence of our fo­cus to mak­ing mean­ing­ful and tan­gi­ble change by work­ing in part­ner­ship key stake­hold­ers in the sphere.”

Re­pub­lic con­firmed Visa has signed on to be a plat­inum spon­sor of the flag­ship event which is open to the pub­lic and free of charge.

“Trans­form­ing ideas in­to tan­gi­ble out­comes de­mands a uni­fied ef­fort and Visa shares this com­mit­ment. We are ex­cit­ed to part­ner with them to turn our shared vi­sion in­to im­pact­ful change,” said Bap­tiste.

Jorge Salum, Visa's se­nior busi­ness de­vel­op­ment leader, Caribbean soun­tries, said “At Visa, we see sus­tain­able and in­clu­sive de­vel­op­ment in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the busi­ness sec­tor, gov­ern­ment, and so­ci­ety as a fun­da­men­tal di­men­sion of our busi­ness growth.

"The dig­i­tal bank­ing sec­tor has a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to boost in­clu­sion and gen­er­ate progress through equal op­por­tu­ni­ties and grass­roots pro­grammes that re­duce so­cioe­co­nom­ic dis­par­i­ty and el­e­vate the dig­ni­ty of work. It is part of our sus­tain­abil­i­ty busi­ness ef­forts to dri­ve ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of all pop­u­la­tion seg­ments to dig­i­tal chan­nels, even those with­out bank ac­counts, while main­tain­ing high se­cu­ri­ty stan­dards and pro­vid­ing an un­in­ter­rupt­ed ex­pe­ri­ence for card users,” Salum said.