Combining both Social & Environmental objectives, AFC’s “One Million Trees for Unity”, was launched in 2019, with a pledge to plant a million trees by 2023. This project is one of the initiatives under the main environmental sustainability program “AFC Thuru Mithuru” which was launched in 2018.
We are mindful that vehicle emissions is one of the main contributors to air pollution and it is established that tree planting is one of the most effective and easiest means to reduce Carbon footprint. As a lessor of vehicles, with a purpose to “Make the World a Better Place through Sustainable Financing”, AFC launched this initiative to address Climate Change – one of the most critical issues that challenge the world with the collaboration of all communities across our country, creating an avenue for the project to fuel the ethnic and social harmony as well. Our main project stakeholders include Tri Forces, RDA, School, Lion’s club, Municipal councils and religious places across the island. With AFC’s most recent contribution of 60,000 plants to the RDA, in 2020, the number of trees we have planted in the country surpassed the 290,000 mark.
The project also contributes towards the Bonn Challenge, which is the global effort to restore the world’s deforested and degraded land with targets to bring 150 million hectares of such land into restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030. For Sri Lanka, the restoration targets 200,000 hectares of forest land which will enable the country to increase its forest cover from 29% to 32% by 2030. And AFC single-handedly aims to contribute 5% to achieve this national goal; a very significant contribution in the context that the Non Bank Financial Industry accounts for only 7% of the Financial Services industry.
