Centenary Bank has launched an ambitious five-year tree-growing and landscape restoration programme aimed at planting 500,000 indigenous timber and fruit trees across Uganda by 2030, as the lender steps up its environmental sustainability agenda.
Dubbed Cente Green Days, the programme will support the planting of 100,000 trees annually and target the restoration of degraded landscapes in communities across the country.
The initiative, launched under the theme “Growing Trees, Transforming Lives, Restoring Creation,” will this year focus on restoring approximately 300 acres of degraded land across 12 districts, with the restoration target expected to reach about 1,500 acres over the five-year programme.
Speaking at the launch, Centenary Bank Managing Director Godfrey Byekwaso said environmental restoration was central to the bank’s long-term sustainability and the economic resilience of communities it serves.
“At Centenary Bank, we are a values-based bank that recognises the critical connection between financial services, businesses, communities and the environment in which they operate,” Byekwaso said.
He added that restoring degraded ecosystems was necessary to protect vulnerable communities and strengthen their capacity to withstand environmental and economic shocks.
“It is therefore imperative for us to restore the environment in order to enhance the resilience and prosperity of the communities, especially vulnerable ones. Only then can the bank prosper,” he said.
Catholic Church joins restoration drive
The programme is being implemented in partnership with the Uganda Episcopal Conference and Good Forests Foundation, bringing together the bank, the Catholic Church and environmental specialists.
The participating dioceses are Arua, Nebbi, Kiyinda-Mityana, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara, Kabale, Kasese, Kotido, Moroto, Fort Portal and Tororo.
Byekwaso said the partnership with the Catholic Church was based on its extensive presence in communities, established leadership structures and experience in environmental stewardship.
Under the arrangement, the Church will support community mobilisation and facilitate access to land for restoration, while Good Forests Foundation will provide technical expertise covering site assessment, species selection, planting, maintenance and monitoring.
The bank said the programme will prioritise indigenous timber and fruit trees because of their potential to deliver both environmental and economic benefits.
The trees are expected to help conserve soils, improve food security, diversify household incomes and strengthen communities’ resilience to erosion, floods and drought.
“We also want participating communities to receive practical benefits from this programme. Indigenous timber and fruit trees can help protect soils, improve food security, diversify household incomes and strengthen resilience to erosion, floods and droughts,” Byekwaso said.
Bank seeks wider support
Centenary Bank said the tree-growing programme is part of its broader Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda and commitment to sustainable banking.
Byekwaso called on other organisations to join the programme through financial support, technical expertise and community networks, arguing that broader participation would allow the restoration campaign to extend beyond its initial five-year target.
The initiative builds on the bank’s previous environmental interventions. Centenary Bank says it has supported the planting of more than 250,000 trees across Uganda since 2023.
The bank also began measuring its carbon emissions in 2025, recording more than 6,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The latest programme is therefore positioned as both a landscape restoration effort and part of the bank’s attempt to reduce its environmental footprint while increasing carbon sequestration through tree growing.
With Uganda facing mounting pressure from land degradation, deforestation and climate-related shocks, the bank says the Cente Green Days programme is intended to link environmental restoration with the livelihoods of communities that depend directly on natural resources.
The five-year target of 500,000 trees represents a significant expansion of the bank’s existing tree-growing efforts, with the success of the programme likely to depend not only on planting but also on the survival, maintenance and long-term management of the trees.
