Being the Green Bank is a way of life for Bank of Valletta. The week starting 24th November is all about raising awareness about how we can be that little bit greener in our every day life. The green team at Bank of Valletta put together a number of initiatives to coincide with the European Week For Waste Reduction (EWWR) in a bid to raise consciousness about the green stakeholder both within the Bank and across society.

Mark Marmara, the Green Manager at BOV provided a good insight into the activities being organised throughout this week as well as bank-wide practices throughout the year. "Adopting green practices is not optional for us. We are focused on taking action with the aim of safeguarding our environment today for tomorrow's generation. We have integrated environment conservation in our day-to-day decision-making process across the whole organisation in order to ensure that we are well aligned to achieve this objective."

"This year we continued to extend the life of unused and unwanted electric and electronic waste, calling on our 1500 employees to come on board and participate," explained Mr Marmara. BOV employees were invited to bring their electronic waste to a specially designated area, from where it was subsequently collected and disposed of responsibly.

Simple green tips to BOV employees, which could easily be applied at home and at the office have also been part of this initiative.

The Bank also embarked on a project to recycle used toners. These are collected separately and sent to a source where the components are separated so as to be re-utilised. Today, ATMs have also become a common tool, easily accessible to anyone, along with other self-service banking channels like BOV Mobile and BOV Internet Banking. All these methods of banking are saving up on paper usage.

Mark Marmara concluded his comments by saying, "At BOV we strongly believe in the multiplier effect, and as one of the largest organisations in Malta, we strive to involve our people as much as possible in our efforts to minimise the effects of our operations on the environment."