While Earth Day 2023 was cel­e­brat­ed on April 22, Sco­tia­bank em­ploy­ees start­ed off cel­e­bra­tions by lead­ing a com­mu­ni­ty seedling dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve in Low­lands, To­ba­go, with part­ner—the SURE Foun­da­tion.

Through this ef­fort, 50,000 seedlings, in­clud­ing let­tuce, patchoi, toma­to, ochro, bo­di, cab­bage, sweet pep­per, peas, corn, cau­li­flower, chive, hot and sweet pep­per were pro­vid­ed to mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Al­so, 100 bar­ba­dine and pas­sion fruit trees were al­so dis­trib­uted.

A state­ment said since 2021, Sco­tia­bank’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with the SURE Foun­da­tion has pro­vid­ed more than 600,000 seedlings to house­holds and chil­dren’s homes to en­cour­age a fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the earth and plant­i­ng what you eat.

Plant­i­ng al­so has the ad­di­tion­al ben­e­fit of in­creased car­bon cap­ture which has crit­i­cal cli­mate change im­pli­ca­tions.

Fur­ther­more, glob­al­ly, Sco­tia­bank an­nounced that it is ac­cept­ing grant sub­mis­sions for its net-ze­ro re­search fund.

Not-for-prof­it and char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions de­vel­op­ing re­search and op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­car­bonise key sec­tors of the econ­o­my have un­til May 31, to sub­mit their pro­pos­als for fund­ing.

Es­tab­lished in 2021 as part of the Bank’s Cli­mate Com­mit­ments, Sco­tia­bank’s $10 mil­lion Net-Ze­ro Re­search Fund ini­ti­ates part­ner­ships with lead­ing think tanks and aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions and pro­vides fund­ing to sup­port re­search to ad­vance glob­al de­car­bon­i­sa­tion.

Gayle Pa­zos, se­nior vice pres­i­dent and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank T&T said: “In keep­ing with the theme of Earth Day 2023: In­vest in Our Plan­et, we recog­nise the role we play in pro­tect­ing earth for this gen­er­a­tion and fu­ture ones. We con­tin­ue to work with part­ners and our em­ploy­ees, sup­port­ing ini­tia­tives that pro­mote sus­tain­able prac­tices and a re­duc­tion in car­bon foot­print.”