Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited (CCI Pakistan), which is part of CCI – the sixth largest bottler within the Coca-Cola System in terms of sales volume, pledged to extend the Prime Minister’s ‘Clean and Green Pakistan’ vision by signing a formal memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Climate Change, according to a press release issued here on Wednesday.
The agreement was signed during a special ceremony hosted at the Ministry of Climate Change in Islamabad on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Top key officials including the Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam, along with representatives from the Ministry of Climate Change, CCI Pakistan, Environment Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the district waste management authorities of related cities attended the ceremony.
The PM’s aide told media after the MoU signing that as per the agreed terms of reference, CCI Pakistan would support and engage in various cleaning activities as well as plantation of around 50,000 tree saplings across the cities of Karachi, Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Islamabad, Attock, Multan, and Rahim Yar Khan.
As part of CCI’s corporate volunteer programme, its employees would also support in executing these activities, said Basir Zafar, manager public affairs of CCI Pakistan.
The green activities are scheduled to be completed within 2021, which reflects a significant contribution towards shaping a clean and green Pakistan, he elaborated.
While speaking about this alliance, Ahmet Kursad Ertin, General Manager at CCI Pakistan said, “We are a responsible and environmentally conscious corporate citizen of Pakistan. This mutual alliance serves as an expression of our firm belief to protect and nurture the environment and fend off catastrophic challenges of climate change faced by Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Malik Amin Aslam stressed that all corporate citizens of Pakistan have a moral obligation to focus their social responsibility agenda towards supporting initiatives such as the ‘Clean and Green Pakistan program’ which can effectively reverse the environmental degradation that is currently threatening our climate sustainability.”
Elaborating about various aspects of the PM’s Clean Green Pakistan Programme, the PM’s aide Malik Amin said that the clean and green Pakistan initiative was formally launched by the Prime Minister of Pakistan as a national campaign in October 2018 that underpins behavioural change and institutional strengthening while envisaging the need to address five components: plantation, solid waste management, liquid waste management/ hygiene, total sanitation and safe drinking water. CCI Pakistan stands firm in supporting this effort to the best of its abilities.
“We strongly believe that engagement with the civil society organisations and corporate sector is of unprecedented importance to successfully implement the PM Imran Khan’s vision for Clean Green Pakistan,” he remarked, emphatically.