Standard Chartered to provide sustainable-trade financing to Gul Ahmed Textile Mills

Standard Chartered Bank (Pakistan) Limited has granted Gul Ahmed Textile Mills Limited with a sustainable-trade financing facility as part of its worldwide strategy to assist sustainable finance and promote environmentally-friendly industrial practices.

This is part of the Bank’s global initiative to cover various financial products that incorporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria into funding and supporting projects that have environmental benefits, typically promote low carbon economies and help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), according to the Bank’s announcement.

Gul Ahmed Textiles is one of Pakistan’s largest composite units, producing everything from cotton yarn to finished products, as well as having great goals to become a “Green Company” with minimum carbon emissions and harmless emissions. This substantial investment would help Pakistan develop the capacity for importing and retiring BCI cotton.

Standard Chartered Pakistan and Gul Ahmed Textiles have constructed extremely sustainable trade facilities with this additional capital, allowing clients to have interchangeable limitations for issuance and retirement.

Arslan Nayeem, Head, Client Coverage, CCIB, Standard Chartered Pakistan, said that this is an inspiring initiative, where the bank is enabling high-performing clients and socially responsible enterprises to achieve their goals of maintaining a healthy environment for the future while seeking commercial progress and exploring growth opportunities.

Nayeem added that they appreciate Gul Ahmed’s re-aligned policies, which promote the use of environmentally friendly raw materials in textile production while using safer energy, ideally renewable energy.

Gul Ahmed Textile Mills CEO Zaki Bashir, said that the company’s vision is “enriching lives by inspiring change,” and the company believed as a manufacturer of textile products, they can be enriching lives by adopting practices in selecting sustainable raw materials that are responsibly produced and sourced, such as “The Better Cotton Initiative” (BCI).

Bashir added that Gul Ahmed is one of Pakistan’s major users of BCI cotton and that the firm would continue to make a lasting effect on sustainability through sustainable practices.

Only sustainable raw materials will be routed via this banking facility as a result of these new regulations and practices. This long-term business strategy is based on the standards of “The Better Cotton Initiative” (BCI), a global non-profit organization that runs the world’s biggest cotton sustainability program. More than 2.3 million cotton farmers in 23 countries receive training on more sustainable agricultural techniques.