Kuala Lumpur, Thursday, 14 December 2006 - Scope International Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank, launched Environmental Week by planting 8 Teak and 2 Durian Trees at its headquarters in Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil.  

Leading the way in conservation, Scope International is committed to create awareness on paper consumption and its impact to the environment whilst conducting business in an ethical and socially responsible manner. Moving forward, Scope International aims to cultivate a paperless processing environment to reduce the dependency on paper and also to encourage staff to continuously recycle paper.

Edwin Nevis, Head of Kuala Lumpur Global Shared Service Centre and Chief Information Officer Malaysia said, “Every day, business in Malaysia generates enough paper that could form a ring around the earth 20 times. And when this paper is no longer used, most of it gets thrown away, taking up space in landfills. In fact, paper products make up the largest part (approximately 40 percent) of our trash.

“The best way to reduce pollution is to prevent it in the first place. We can reduce the use of paper by printing and copying on both sides of paper to achieve a 50% reduction in use. Based on actual paper consumption in Scope, we consume an average of 4,400 reams of A4 paper or 2.2 million sheets of A4 paper a month. In a year that equals to 52,800 reams or 26 million sheets of A4 paper.

“The pollution prevention loop is complete when we recycle paper products. Recycling allows materials that have all ready been harvested to be used again and again rather than ending up in landfills. Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water.

Edwin added, ”We should be conscious of costs to business and reduce wastage by maximise the usage of available resources in order to preserve nature.  As such, it is important to ensure long-term viability of business and avoid polluting the environment. If there is no place to live, no business can continue.”

Scope International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank, UK, is an integral part of the Bank’s strategy to consolidate and rationalise operations into Shared Services Centres. Scope International services all 56 countries of the Standard Chartered Group processing over 80 million transactions a year. Scope International began operations in August 2002 and now serves almost 70% of SCB applications development across Asian countries.