Boursa Kuwait: Outstanding Contribution to the SDGs GCC 2021
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a universal framework to meet urgent environmental, social and economic challenges. Boursa Kuwait is rising to the challenge by focusing on four key areas: people, community, education and environment. The recently privatized operator of Kuwait’s national stock exchange has been instrumental in the diversification of Kuwait’s economy and development of its capital market — which was recently upgraded from Frontier to Emerging market in the world’s top three indices. Boursa Kuwait is an equal-opportunity employer that participates in global initiatives to support women’s empowerment. It provides ongoing professional development to employees and promotes internship opportunities through university partnerships. In 2020, employees benefited from over 2,000 training hours via a partnership with LinkedIn Learning. Boursa Kuwait also continued to develop content for its free digital education portal to increase financial literacy and understanding of financial markets. The company engages in a broad range of social impact initiatives to create long-term benefits for the population, from strategic partnerships to improve children’s hospital experiences to employee volunteerism. Boursa Kuwait is working to reduce its carbon footprint, and efficiency upgrades have resulted in a consumption reduction of over a million kilowatts of energy and 85,000 gallons of water during 2020. The bourse’s three-phased “Align, Create and Integrate” approach to corporate sustainability seeks alignment with international standards and business objectives as well as a measurable return on investments for the company and its stakeholders. The CFI.co judging panel presents repeat programme winner Boursa Kuwait with the 2021 Outstanding Contribution to the SDGs (GCC) award.