Thursday 18 October 2007

On 18 October 2007, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) launched an exciting project as part of its Greatest Race On Earth (GROE) marathon series.

For the 2007/08 series of marathons in Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong, SCB is working with WWF-UK to raise awareness of some of the threats to our living planet that WWF is addressing, and to educate and encourage people to make simple pledges that will ultimately benefit the environment.

SCB is also donating US$1 million, which will be used by WWF to fund projects that relate to three countries that SCB staff, consumers and the public will help to decide. In addition, SCB has committed to work with WWF to look at how it can positively change its business practices to benefit the environment.

The Greatest Race on Earth
In 2004, SCB created the Greatest Race on Earth, a challenging virtual relay race across their four established marathons in Hong Kong, Singapore, Nairobi and Mumbai. These locations represent some of the most challenging urban running environments in the world. Whether it's the intense heat of Mumbai and Singapore, the steep inclines of Hong Kong, or the high altitude of Nairobi, participants in these marathons face an extremely difficult task.

Pledging to conserve our living planet
Not only can visitors to the GROE website make simple pledges to benefit the environment, they will also be asked to support one of the 35 countries for which SCB is sponsoring an official national athletics team. The pledges will be added up after the last race in Hong Kong on 17 February 2008 and the three countries with the most pledges will be awarded a share of the $1million. This money will be used by WWF to fund important projects in or related to the 'winning' countries.

Peter Sands, CEO of SCB said: "We chose to work with WWF because we knew that by working with them our million dollar donation would have maximum impact, because we would be able to make the most of their expertise and their knowledge and their ability to really deliver an environmental outcome using the funds."

Edwina Silvester, WWF-UK, said: "This is a great opportunity to encourage lots of people across the globe to take steps to reduce their impact on the environment.

"We are also keen to help Standard Chartered manage its environmental and social impact through better investment practices, lending policies and its advisory services. We also hope that by setting an example of leadership this will help encourage the whole banking sector to move towards sustainable finance."

To find out more about pledging for a living planet, visit the official Greatest Race On Earth website