By Fatima Saka
The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN) has said it is important to protect the environment from all forms of human abuses that spell doom to both the present and future generations.
The association said industrial and other human activities should not be done in ways that affect the environment negatively.
According to the President, Mr Taiwo Owokalade, in Lagos during the 2022 Company Secretaries and Registrars’ forum, with the theme ‘Sustainability and the future of green economy: A governance perspective’, the theme was reflective of the institute’s passion for nurturing a habitable, balanced and safe ecology as a springboard for all human growth, progress and development.
“The choice of this theme was informed by the exigent realities of the contemporary times and its challenges of suboptimal utilisation of earth resources even as we make little or no efforts towards replacement of their depletion.
“Another worrisome parallel to this is the continual endangerment of our environment through varieties of unwholesome practices which increases toxicity level in the ecosystem while undermining the quality of life.
“Also, sustainability connotes a method of running business to make both profit and ethical impact count as environmental and social issues are embodied in policy mainstreaming of corporations, and other entities,” he stated.
He equally lamented that many human practices, at industrial, corporate, social and individual levels were solely centered on immediate gains and gratifications with hardly any thought for long-term consequences of inimical behaviours that hurt the environment.
Meanwhile, the Registrar/Chief Executive Officer, ICSAN, Mrs Taiwo Olusesi, said the aim of the theme was to throw up discourses around the sustainability concept and its notion of green economy, with a view to gain insight into their implications from the perspectives of corporate and public aspects of governance.
“In a nutshell, sustainability in the context of governance is an integrated approach to environmental social and economic impact issues (both internal and external) which leads to long-term sustainable profit and growth as well as social and collective progress and development,” she said.