Staff Writer
CBZ Holdings says it is committing significant effort towards ESG, which is the environment, governance, and sustainability, and is addressing all three elements in equal measure.
Chief executive Lawrence Nyazema told Insurance24 that under Environment, a couple of years ago, the bank gave solar loans to all its staff members, which was an effort to ensure that starting with CBZ itself would be a perfect example of how the environment can be sustained.
“In terms of sustainability, a lot goes into it, but the biggest form of ensuring sustainability is to grow the economy, and once you grow the economy, you create resources for agents within the economy to sustain communities and sustain society.
“So, the biggest effort that we are applying towards that is that CBZ is ensuring that we support both the productive and consumptive elements of the economy,” he said.
Nyazema said the bank’s loan book is now between US$400 million and US$500 million, which is going towards ensuring that the economy grows.
“Like I have said, when you have a growing economy, you have better chances of sustaining communities and societies,” he said.
In terms of insurance, Nyazema said the insurance business is using its various products to support areas that are not addressed by the bank.
“This is among the reasons why, as a group, we have an insurance business, a banking business, a property business, and an investment business. So within the insurance, we’ve got short-term insurance, we’ve got life insurance, and we’ve got risk advisory. Risk advisory, which is kind of your broking arm.
“So amongst the three of them, we ensure that we provide a full range of services, and that’s how we enhance the sustainability element from an insurance perspective,” he said.
