Kuala Lumpur, 23 May 2010 – Ready, Set, Run! Over 1,500 Standard Chartered determined staff and their families gathered at Padang Merbok at dawn on Sunday, to take part in the pre-marathon practice run organised in conjunction with the much anticipated upcoming Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2010.

The marathon practice session began, at 7.30am, with an aerobics warm-up and was followed by the individual 5km and 3km practice runs. The 3km run also involved 50 vision-impaired youth who met their running buddies comprising Standard Chartered staff volunteers for the first time. Apart from this, stalls were set up to sell food and drink to raise funds to fund an eye care project under ‘Seeing is Believing’ in Kuching. ‘Seeing is Believing’ is a global initiative by Standard Chartered to tackle avoidable blindness.

“It was indeed heartening to see the vision-impaired youth run with their Standard Chartered buddies and cross the finish line together in today’s pre-marathon practice,” said Arif Siddiqui, CIO, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and CEO, Scope International, the global technology & operations hub for the banking group. He added that today’s heart-warming event is another platform to engage Standard Chartered staff in sustainability causes, particularly on the ‘Seeing is Believing’ and Environmental causes.

Among some of the other exciting outdoor activities lined up during the pre-marathon carnival were telematch games and attractive lucky draws.

In conjunction with the carnival, Standard Chartered donated 6,000 fruit trees to the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) in a move to introduce more indigenous fruit species to the city and contribute to a more sustainable environment for city dwellers. These fruit trees are a gift from Standard Chartered Bank’s Group and Technology Operations team to Malaysia and this represents the first initiative under the Standard Chartered eco-project, GreenFingers, which was launched on 14 May. In just over a week, the GreenFingers’ pledge has increased from 8,000 to 11,000 trees.

On hand to witness the first symbolic tree planting initiative under the Standard Chartered GreenFingers was Tuan Haji Saharudin bin Md Noh, Director of Landscape and Urban Cleansing Control Department of DBKL.

Siddiqui said Standard Chartered is committed to the local communities they operate in and hoped that the collaboration with DBKL would help create a greener Kuala Lumpur and enhance efforts to make it a sustainable city.

“Under our GreenFingers eco-project, we will also be planting an additional 5,000 trees at selected sites along the Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Marathon route, as well as across the country,” he added.

Tuan Haji Saharudin bin Md Noh said that while it was important to get participation from the community in greening the city, it was also important to enlist the help of corporate sponsors to support and sustain the cause. “DBKL is extremely thankful to Standard Chartered for making this effort possible, we hope that this sets precedence for other corporations to follow,” he said.

The 6,000 fruit trees, comprising various indigenous species including Durian, Mangga, Tampoi, Pulasan and Kerian, will be planted at a site behind the Istana Negara and will be nurtured by DBKL.

Standard Chartered GreenFingers is a long-term eco-project aimed at enhancing the bank’s ongoing environmental sustainability agenda in Malaysia. GreenFingers is line with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s 26 Million Trees Campaign and Standard Chartered has been recognised as the first corporate entity to be supporting the Government’s campaign. GreenFingers is also recognised as part of the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign.

For more information on GreenFingers, log on to www.standardchartered.com.my or visit our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/scgreenfingers.

For more information on the Standard Chartered KL Marathon, log on to www.kl-marathon.com.