Towards a Sustainable Future: Over a D ecade of Sustainability
TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: OVER A DECADE OF SUSTAINABILITY TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: OVER A DECADE OF SUSTAINABILITY A sustainable business involves long-term, strategic planning for business growth with positive environmental, economic and societal continuity. It is about ensuring the prolonged existence of an organisation in a way that benefits the business, its stakeholders, and the environment. Organisations need to understand the impact of sustainable development on their longterm survival and the importance of its leaders’ commitment. The triple bottom line of People, Planet, and Profit captures the essence of sustainability by measuring the impact of an organisation’s activities on profitability, shareholder values as well as its social, human and environmental capital. People and organisations today are constantly working towards balancing their triple bottom line. The sustainability sector has grown rapidly, with global annual revenues at about $1 billion and projected revenue of over $12 trillion by 2030. The success or failure of sustainability goals must be measured in terms of the wellbeing of people and the health of our planet, and not only in terms of profit and loss. At Access Bank, one of Af rica’s leading financial institutions, we are committed to contributing significantly, towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are aware that our operations have a direct impact on the economy, people, and the environment. Therefore, we always ensure that our business operations and practices are environmentally responsible and socially relevant. Part of our contributions to the SDGs is also facilitating and financing sustainable economic growth as well as increasing our efficiencies to mitigate adverse environmental impact.
Over a decade into our sustainability journey, we have
PEOPLE We strengthen the people and businesses in our local communities by supporting various projects, organisations, and events that are focused on making a positive difference. Our priority areas of support include health, education, sports, arts, social welfare, and environment. We have invested over N9.34 billion in various corporate social responsibility efforts since 2015, impacting more than 1316 communities and touching 30 075 356 lives and 793 NGOs. Some of our notable community investment programs include the 2020 HIV Testing and Counselling Services at the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon. At the event, we tested and counselled 3235 people. We also reached 33 468 people with HIV educational materials and distributed 10 000 condoms. In July 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Access Bank partnered with 9iJaKids to deliver an online financial literacy and educational gamification modules to children. More than 2000 children were able to access financial literacy education through the programme. In 2019, the bank partnered with ACT Foundation to provide grants to 28 NGOs to implement projects in the areas of health, entrepreneurship, environment and leadership. The grantees have so far impacted over 685 505 lives through their programmes. The bank partnered with SME FUNDS, to develop the Green Social Entrepreneurship Program (GSEP), a social enterprise focused on ending poverty by promoting sustainable enterprise development. The program empowered entrepreneurs with clean cooking stove technology, which makes use of Bio-Gels made from water hyacinth, biocremol, caustic soda, fragrance and chlorophyll, to replace existing cooking technologies that are harmful to both human health and the environment.
aligned our corporate philosophy with our sustainability strategy and remain committed to setting standards for sustainable business practices. We provide innovative solutions and implement strategic initiatives for our shared future, as we pursue our vision to become the world’s most respected Af rican bank.
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Thanks to this programme, 598 households now use clean stove technology across Nigeria while 2100 people use clean stove technology, displacing 292 metric tonnes of CO2.