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By Henry Uche
Lady Cheta Nwabuike is woman of many parts. She is a corporate leader, sustainability practitioner and environmental enthusiast. Her professional experience cuts across various industries within which she has worked, and these include the communication, manufacturing, oil, gas and power industries.
She currently works with the Clean Energy Group in Nigeria.
She serves as the Group Executive Director overseeing the Legal, Compliance, Health & Safety, Environmental, Social & Governance (E.S.G.), Human Resource & Admin arms of the business.
In this interview with Daily Sun, Lady Nwabuike talks about aligning with the SDG goals and their corporate strategy to decarbonize their footprint while still providing power to the Nigerian populace.
Your organization, CE Power Solutions is deeply embedded in Nigeria’s industrial landscape. What is the hardest roadblock it faces when trying to decarbonize its local supply chain, and where do you need grassroots environmental NGOs to step in and bridge the gap?
In our own business operations, we also need to keep an eye on what our local supply chain is doing because whatever they do is a reflection of what we are doing and who we are. Right now, we recently got certified by ISO, we have 9001, 14001(for environment), and 45001, it doesn’t stop with us.
Wherever we do business, we must ensure that we keep up to the standard in terms of the environment, we are now going to have engagements with our various stakeholders which we have also had in the past, but it’s something we intend to do more now.
We must propagate this message stakeholders to ensure the message go through. On how the grassroots environmental NGOs can step in and bridge the gap, it’s basically like this initiative we have with One Million Trees Initiative. We hope it gets to the face of government so they will see what we are doing and so they can encourage others to carry out this kind of initiative.
With Nigeria’s net-zero targets and strict regulatory eyes on corporate emissions, how is your organization aligning its local operations with national carbon budgets?
We are keeping our eyes on, every quarter we have what we call ‘Environmental Compliance Monitoring’ by one of our environmental consultants to ensure that the emissions from our generators are within the federal ministry of environment’s limit and the world bank limit, so that keeps our eyes not just on compliance but on ensuring that our operations do not violate what we have in the national budget.
How does stepping out of the power plants and getting your hands dirty planting trees in some major cities complement your core mission of providing clean, sustainable energy?
First and all, our company is aligned with the 17 SDG goals in terms of ensuring that we provide power but in doing so, we ensure that we provide it in a cleaner and more affordable way.
Even as we use compressed natural gas, there is still a little bit of carbon footprint that we have our business. And as much as we want see how we can balance out that print, it becomes very important that we don’t just talk, we also do it in the sense that having this kind of initiative with One million Trees Planting Initiative, we are able to go into the environment and actually plant trees.
We know the benefits of tress particularly in helping to mitigate or reduce the carbon footprint. So for us, it’s something very close to our heart that we want to ensure that we are able to do it and in doing it, our people and employees are able to do it themselves, even in their own homes, they are able to carry out this initiative whenever they have an opportunity to plant something or do a garden in their homes.
And we are doing it in major cities like Lagos and Rivers state where there are heavy pollution and carbon emission. So doing it in these cities, we are also helping to balance the carbon footprint while providing power to the Nigerian populace.
Your company is primarily known for providing heavy-duty Independent Power Plant (IPP) services and gas-to-power setups for manufacturing and industrial clients. How does your corporate sustainability strategy bridge the gap between keeping Nigeria’s industries running and getting your staff to physically plant trees?
Our corporate strategy, apart from looking at education, community welfare, health, and youths’ development, very close to our heart is the environment. In recent times, we are voluntary adaptors of the sustainability roadmap which IFRS S1 & S2, that is being championed by the IFIS Nigeria.
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Our plan is to ensure that the target we set in terms of bringing down carbon footprint, we are working assiduously to see that, that happens. So, that keys into our corporate sustainable strategy of improving the environment by planting trees, making sure that the environment is much better than the way we met it in the system. The two go side by side. We cannot say we are into this business and being in this business, all we are just doing is pumping into the environment, polluting the environment further. As I said earlier, one of our major goals is to align with the SDG goals and doing that, ensuring that our carbon footprint is reduced, that becomes part of our strategy. And ensuring that, that happens, we must actually engage with the likes of One million Trees initiative, and getting our hands dirty by planting trees. To start with, within our surrounding where we do business and in our plants, we have greenies. That also helps to reinforce our commitment in terms of reducing carbon footprint.
Your corporate environmental policy emphasizes a strict commitment to ISO 14001:2015 standards, specifically aiming to minimize fuel consumption, mitigate emissions, and prevent pollution. How does this joint tree planting campaign with OMTI act as a dynamic, nature-based extension of your compliance and pollution-reduction goals as well as help you start broader, more critical sustainability conversations with your industrial power consumers regarding their own carbon footprints?”
I think it’s a welcome development. The relationship we have with the OMTI and this is the third year running, I think they have given us avenue which ordinarily probably we wouldn’t have pursued critically. They have given us that avenue to do something good for the environment. Then partnering with them, it’s not just us, we also have other corporate bodies that all come together, we all collaborate, you know something that would have been very difficult for one person to carry becomes much easier because we have other people collaborating in doing that.
As much as possible, we are early adaptors for the sustainability roadmap and the IFRS disclosure reporting. So in doing this, we are not just putting things down on paper, but when we report, it’s actually what we have done. It’s not a matter of saying, but in doing it.
We also have other subcontractors and vendors, when they see us doing that, it encourages them to follow suit. They imitate our organization can do this, why can’t they even collaborate with us to also see how they can bring down their carbon footprint. Now our target are being set currently and I am sure once those targets are set, we are then going to be working assiduously with our various partners: Companies, vendors, contractors etc, to also see what they are also doing in order to bring down their own carbon footprint. So we are setting the pace because what they are doing is a reflection of what we do.
Hosting this tree-planting activity at the Nigeria Institute of Journalism is highly symbolic. What specific role does your organization see future journalists playing in driving accountability and raising awareness for environmental restoration and the circular economy in Nigeria?
Journalists have a lot to do because they are the voice of the people in a lot of ways. They drive advocacy campaigns, ordinarily sitting in my house I don’t have access to the media, I won’t be able to see it, but when they are there telling the story, people see it better because they create that awareness and understand better that these are things that need to be done. I think this is the most strategic engagement we have had in the last three years to be partnering with One Million Trees Initiative, so doing it with the people that puts it in the face of the whole world, and when we do this, people can sit in their homes and say, oh this is a good initiative, can I on my own even start to do something to also help to improve the environment?
And I believe that going forward with this, I saw someone the other day throwing a plastic through the window, I almost blocked the person to go back and pick it up. You see we don’t have the culture of sustainability. Though it’s coming up gradually but we are not there. One good thing the Lagos government has started doing is this plastic bags when you get to the supermarket, that N70, N100 or N200 you pay for the bag has sent signal to the people that environmental sustainability is key.
They did it at a time and stopped, we need to hear it more and more because the more we hear things the more we internalize it. So the media has a big role to play and encourage people on circular economy: reusing, recycling and all of that, so that we can help to actually reduce waste in the environment.
Tree planting is not a one-day event. It requires long-term nurturing to ensure survival and real ecosystem benefits. In what ways is your organization committing to support the post-planting phase of this project at NIJ, and how does this collaborative effort with OMTI fit into your company’s broader strategy for creating shared value within thriving urban communities like Lagos?
Looking back last year, one of the things we did last year was, we didn’t just plant trees. We planted trees using the names of our children and grandchildren. And that speaks to the future. I won’t want after planting a tree in the name of my daughter and go back to see that the tree has died.
This is because there is a particular interest attached to somebody. It’s as if you are nurturing that child. You go back to ask, how is the child fairing. So it’s the same strategy we are going to use for NIJ. Those trees would be named after our children. So we will go back to NIJ and say please the trees we planted, how far? I want to see how the trees are doing. So we can’t just leave those trees alone.
If you could strip away the corporate jargon, what is the raw, direct message you want to send to everyday Lagosians and local green activists this World Environment Day regarding our shared responsibility for the environment?
First of all to Lagosians, the government cannot do everything, but they should support NGOs.
We have our own responsibilities to play as citizens. We must keep our environment clean. When we dispose waste, we must dispose it in a responsible manner. We must all think, at the end of the day, this thing I’m throwing away in this manner, where will it get to, who is affected?
The government officials will sit on this high and mighty seats but it’s the commoners that suffer it. We have the laws but we need proper implementation. But enforcement should not come first. Awareness needs to be done. We need to encourage people to do the right thing. Those Nigerians doing anyhow here, take us to Ghana, we will do the right thing without anybody policing us.
So let’s create more awareness, let people buy into that idea. Let people see the idea is good for everyone. We must all be partners. For green activists, they should not give up. When people know they will benefit in the better attitude, they will change, but the change starts from me. When we do the right thing, you will see that enforcement will be minimal or may not be there, at all.
