By Dipo Olowookere
The Executive Director in charge of Corporate Bank at Ecobank Nigeria, Mr Kola Adeleke, has said sustainability remains an essential part of the lender’s mission and vision of building a world-class pan-African bank.
The banker said this while receiving the Starsight Sustainability Award 2020 from the Head of Sales, SMEs at Starsight Energy, Ms Teme Jack, in Lagos recently.
According to him, the Ecobank Group Sustainability framework is focused on four thematic areas which include Economic Transformation, Environmental Sustainability, Socially Responsible Financing and Human Capital Development.
He noted that these focus areas are aligned with the tenets of the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles (NSBP), adding that Ecobank is a signatory member of a number of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) framework, including the Equator Principles and the United Nations Global Compact.
“We have set a target of achieving the goals as regard SDG/Climate change and society’s wellbeing.
“For instance, the bank is committed to taking bold steps to reduce our carbon footprint, demonstrated in carbon emission from our business operations, travels, paper use and office waste disposal.
“We further commit to investing in energy efficiency by incorporating the use of renewable energy products and practices, design architecture for energy-efficient building in new branch expansions, including retrofitting programmes; as well as mainstreaming sustainable practices in third-party contractor’s agreement for supply and procurement activities,” Mr Adeleke said.
Speaking further, he said the sustainable actions of Ecobank support the development of Nigeria and Africa as a continent.
“Ecobank is focused on mainstreaming environmental and social best practices in its operations and has adopted various ESG frameworks, including the NSBP as benchmarks for measuring its environmental stewardship.
“We have been in partnership with Starsight Energy to deliver a market-leading renewable energy solution across our branches in Nigeria, they have delivered over 100 branches facilities with renewable energy solution, thereby reducing our carbon footprint and making Ecobank one of the market leaders in the implementation of Principle 2 of NSBP,” he added.
On her part, Ms Jack lauded the commitment of Ecobank towards the application of renewable solutions, thereby reducing carbon footprints.
She stressed that the award, given to Ecobank, Starsight Renewable Energy Sustainability Award for 2020, was well deserved.
She was optimistic that Starsight partnership with Ecobank would further go a long way to environmental sustainability.
“Our partnership with Ecobank has delivered an outstanding result in a short window of time and we look forward to expanding our partnership in Nigeria and other geographical regions of operations,” Ms Jack stated.
The award given to Ecobank indicated that Ecobank is well placed to be the market leader in the establishment of Green Branches across the country.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Aduragbemi Omiyale