Part 12/13 of the Business Sustainability in Nigeria Series with Adiya Atuluku and Jennifer Uchendu
I remember my very first task in my very first job. It was to make a presentation about the Millennium Development Goals in the office’s first knowledge sharing session. I had heard about it but not indept, so I had to do tons of research, which is no doubt why my boss asked me to do the presentation. The job was in a boutique environmental consulting firm in Abuja, and I was there without pay – I was waiting for NYSC to start, but I really didn’t want to wait at home, so my mother rescued me by finding somewhere that wanted cheap labor…well, to be honest free labor. I was clueless about environmental issues though, but I loved that it was consulting work and liaising with regulators and private corporations.
But to be honest, my eyes were open to a lot those few months, and in the following four years I worked there after NYSC…for pay this time! During those years, I worked on a lot of Environmental Impact Assessments, Environmental Audits, CSR strategies, topical issue research, environmental guidelines, and a particularly gruesome project on abandoned mines. Working on these, and liaising with these corporations we did the work for, gave me some insight into their attitude with regards environmental issues. I’ll share some below:
- Corporations weren’t going to consider how their operations impacted on the environment and the neighbouring communities…unless someone mandated them to. Then, the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) under the Federal Ministry of Environment was watching big projects closely. So these companies had to do the assessments.
- The companies never/hardly ever referred to these environmental documentation after they were concluded. To them, it was a formality to get their licenses from regulators.
- Engagements with the host communities were also formalities, and negative comments were usually glossed over. Nothing really happened after the town-hall, and this was only done because it was a mandatory part of the environmental impact assessment.
- The periodic environmental audits are meant to follow up on the initial environmental impact assessments to see whether the measures outlined in the initial assessments are being followed, and if the company is making the area worse or better off. But even the regulators weren’t serious about checking up on these audits, so following from the first point above, the audits never really got done.
- Even though several of these companies had regional and international ties, there was no push from their head offices to take environmental issues seriously when planning or executing their projects.
On the whole, there was a begrudging attitude towards environmental and social impacts of these major projects, and it was only done to get required licenses to operate.
Fast forward to me moving over to management consulting. I suppose this put me on the other side of the fence. Initially, I was looking at how company’s major projects affected the environment and communities. But now I was looking at what kind of issues mattered to these companies and what they had to do to succeed. It never occurred to be until recently that never one in my three – four years doing this, did I hear a word about the environment.
This was brought home to me in my year off in school. (Side note, I encourage anyone in their mid careers to take a year off to school, not just because of the new skills you will learn, but because it becomes a sort of retreat from your life and a chance for you to re-evaluate your career.) During this time, I was involved in a challenge/project for Nestle Nespresso (the luxury coffee people) who were looking at how they can change their operations within the concept of a circular economy. Finally, something that could help me merge my environmental and management backgrounds. Even though this was what I wanted to do as I was switching to management consulting, the idea sort of fell into the cracks of my mind and never came out until this year off. This Nespresso project, and several other modules about business and ethics, brought this idea to the fore of my mind once again. I finally decided to pursue it for good.
Since my decision, I have seen myself to be in a transition period of sorts. I’ve been learning how best to frame environmental issues into ways that managers can understand and appreciate so that these environmental assessments aren’t done just because companies are being forced to, but because companies want to see how best to add value and contribute to sustainable development. I’ve been meeting people who think like I do, and who want to see business being done in a better way. And I’ve worked to incorporate these sustainability concepts into the management consulting projects I’ve been doing. So far, I’ve got some insights into what managers are thinking in terms of social and environmental issues. I’ll share some below:
- Many managers are aware of basic sustainability issues, but feel like it is a long-term concept, not something that warrants their immediate attention.
- Many managers feel sustainability is also a western issue – being that the Western world has been the largest polluters and that Nigeria needs to tackle increased profits and reduced poverty before we can focus on other issues.
- You would think the oil industry would be on the forefront of sustainability in Nigeria, given the high risk of environmental pollution, but I would say the leaders are becoming the banking and FMCG industries – given that CBN has issued sustainability principles and many banks and consumer goods companies have sustainability managers who are quite active in the CSR space.
- Sustainability issues seem to be best framed in conventional language which managers understand best – profit. The business case for sustainability needs to be explicitly made, and translations into how it will increase profit or reduce costs need to be stated.
- Business sustainability still seems to be a corporate concept, whereas social entrepreneurship is a growing concept for start ups and entrepreneurs in the idea stage. I’m still seeing how organizations firmly in the SME status respond to sustainability.
This is actually an exciting time for business sustainability globally, and this is spilling into Nigeria. But right now, we are still mainly in the conversation/awareness stage where companies need to go from just grudgingly complying with environmental regulations to willingly seeing the immediate and long-term value in sustainability. This needs to happen before companies start taking concrete actions in their business models, products and services and supply chains.
It’s a topic I’m fascinated with, and I look forward to researching more into it and working more with companies, NGOs, companies, communities, media and other stakeholders to explore this, and see how best Nigeria can utilize business sustainability concepts for sustainable development. This business sustainability in Nigeria series is a first step in that direction!