Employees of Ceylinco Life and their families kept 990 kilograms of potentially toxic electronic waste from harming the planet, thanks to an ‘E-waste Collection Day’ initiative of the Company’s Green Club which saw abandoned and malfunctioning electronic equipment being responsibly recycled.
Among the discarded devices collected from Ceylinco Life offices and homes of employees were items of electronic equipment such as printers, personal computers and parts, laptops, networking equipment, scanners, mobile phones, CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, UPS units, video cameras, calculators, facsimile machines and telephones, video games, electronic components and multiple types of batteries including Lead, Nickel, and Cadmium batteries, telecommunication and server batteries.
In all, an eye-opening 800 plus pieces of electronic waste were amassed on the day and dispatched to a reputed company specialising in the recycling and disposal of e-waste, the Company said. This works out to approximately 11,123 lbs of Carbon emissions being prevented from entering the atmosphere and is equivalent to saving 369 trees or recycling 12,990 plastic bottles, the Company said
Commenting on the event, the President of Ceylinco Life’s Green Club Tilan Wijesinghe said: “It is astounding how much e-waste can accumulate in homes and offices over the years. The success of our first ‘E-waste Collection Day’ was encouraging and helped create environmental awareness on an aspect that is often ignored. There is wider understanding now about how harmful the toxins in e-waste are to the environment.”
The Green Club of Ceylinco Life was formed earlier this year by a group of volunteers with the objectives of creating an understanding about the environment and environmental challenges among all employees, developing the necessary skills and expertise to address the challenges faced by the environment, creating a culture that takes responsible action related to the environment, and encouraging employee participation in activities to create a ripple effect in their families and communities towards forming sustainable societies.
Committed to enterprise-wide sustainability, Ceylinco Life is in the process of building a network of Green branches on company-owned land. These new buildings are solar-powered; have rainwater harvesting facilities and waste water recycling systems that minimise the use of pipe-borne water, are designed for optimal use of natural light and are equipped with the latest energy-efficient lighting and air conditioning systems.
The Company has also embarked on an initiative to restore and maintain fifty hectares (123.5 acres) of land owned by the Department of Forest Conservation in the Puttalam range in collaboration with the University of Kelaniya, as part of its commitment to the environment and its effort to achieve zero carbon emissions status.
Sri Lanka’s leading life insurer for the second half of the 32 years it has been in existence, Ceylinco Life was ranked the most valuable life insurance brand in Sri Lanka by Brand Finance this year and declared the ‘Peoples Life Insurance Service Provider of the Year’ for the 14th consecutive year at the 2020 SLIM-Nielsen Peoples Awards. The Company was ranked among the 10 ‘Most Admired Companies’ in the country by the ICCSL in 2019 and in the same year was named the Best Life Insurer in Sri Lanka for the sixth consecutive year by World Finance, and ranked sixth overall in the Business Today ranking of the country’s top 30 companies.
Ceylinco Life has close to a million lives covered by active policies and is acknowledged as a benchmark in the local insurance industry for innovation, product research and development, customer service, professional development and corporate social responsibility.