Colombo, November 25, 2021 - SLT-MOBITEL, the National ICT Solutions Provider, has once again been recognised for its commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices, being named among the Top Ten Corporate Citizens of 2021. The group walked away with a haul of three awards at the 18th Annual ‘Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Award 2021’ ceremony on Tuesday, November 23, organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the country’s premier business chamber. SLT-MOBITEL came up top in its category as the ‘Sustainability Champion’ and was also adjudged second runner-up for the award for ‘Demonstrated Resilient Practices for COVID-19 Context’ at this year’s awards ceremony, which considered the COVID-19 pandemic that affected corporates and sustainability in 2020. Despite a very challenging year for the nation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SLT-MOBITEL has continued to make every effort to fulfil its corporate social responsibility in the areas of Economy, Governance, Environment and Society, embracing sustainability as a business practice. From left: Vish Govindasamy, Chairman Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Anuruddha Suriarachchi, General Manger –SLT, Prabhath Dahanayake, Chief Marketing Officer-SLT, H. E. Trine Jøranli Eskedal, Ambassador of Norway to Sri Lanka and Duminda Hulangamuwa, Vice Chairman Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. An elated Prabhath Dahanayake, Chief Marketing Officer of Sri Lanka Telecom PLC said, “Our commitment towards a sustainable business is as much strategic, as it is empathetic. Over the years we have decisively strengthened our track record as a responsible entity and remain steadfast in our sustainability commitments across environmental, social and corporate undertakings. At SLT-MOBITEL we put sustainability at the heart of what we do and persevere to implement the latest in next generation technologies, sustainable innovations and best practices ensuring our nation building commitment is fulfilled even in these unprecedented COVID-19 times. As we strive towards SLT Vision 2022 we aim to become a bigger and better version of ourselves.” The Chamber adopted an improved evaluation criteria in this year’s Awards to highlight the need to mainstream business emergency preparedness, resilience, and stakeholder management in the core business to meet unforeseen challenges. Focus areas of the competition included environment, customer relations, community relations, governance, financial performance, economic contribution and special sustainable projects. Raising the bar in sustainability business practices and benefits, SLT-MOBITEL as the only provider of fibre-to-the-home connectivity in Sri Lanka has begun replacing traditional copper cables with modern fibre optic cables for high-speed internet across the country. As importantly, SLT-MOBITEL completely repurposes the copper cables for traditional operations, reusing resources that would otherwise have been discarded as waste. Winning the Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Awards are also testament to SLT-MOBTEL’s great teams in adopting to new ways of working, showcasing agility and determination to continue to deploy the right infrastructure and achieve national digital goals. Notwithstanding the challenges presented by the pandemic, SLT-MOBITEL successfully fulfilled its commitments to customers serving them in multiple ways, securing lives and livelihoods. Investments exceeding Rs. 350 Million has been utilised to facilitate essential services, support the government in its endeavours, uplift frontline healthcare workers and connect the nation. As an environmentally conscious entity, the company initiated the ‘SLT-MOBITEL Green Premier League’ (GPL) parallel to the Sri Lankan Premier League 2020 where the company planted trees at the Rajawaka forest reserve in Kalthota, Balangoda equivalent to the winning score of each team in every match. The drive successfully added 4000 plants to the forest reserve while a sustainable maintenance program for the trees was organised in collaboration with the Forest Department in accordance with UN Sustainable Developments Goals.