By Barbara Nwaiwu
Businesses must move beyond treating sustainability as a standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) function and integrate it into strategy, operations and decision-making to manage risks, strengthen resilience and create measurable business value, a Seplat Energy Plc executive has said.
Director of External Affairs and Social Performance at Seplat Energy Plc, Chioma Afe, made the call at the 2026 Sustainability Conference of the Sustainability Professionals Institute of Nigeria (SPIN) in Lagos.
According to a statement issued on Sunday by Stanley Opara, Manager, Corporate Communications, Corporate Communications & Media Relations, Seplat Energy Plc.
Speaking during a panel session themed, “The Future-Ready Sustainability Professional: Skills for Navigating Volatile Times,” Afe said sustainability professionals should help organisations move away from viewing sustainability as a cost centre or a collection of social initiatives and instead position it as an integral part of business strategy.
“Sustainability should not be viewed as a cost centre. It’s a risk management tool,” she said.
Afe cited Seplat Energy’s strategic evolution as an example, explaining that during the company’s strategy review in 2020–2021, sustainability was positioned as a core component of the business capable of generating returns rather than remaining focused mainly on community interventions.
She said successful integration required departments including operations, legal, procurement, finance and human resources to understand their roles in identifying and managing sustainability-related risks and supporting organisational objectives.
Afe also urged sustainability professionals to develop stronger commercial awareness and demonstrate how sustainability could address specific business challenges and create value.
She said practitioners should be able to explain the business case for interventions, identify the risks they address and demonstrate the value created, rather than focusing mainly on implementing initiatives and reporting activities.
Afe also called for a rethink of how businesses approach social impact.
“We should stop funding random acts of kindness,” she said, urging organisations to first identify the specific business or societal challenge they intend to address before committing resources.
She said many challenges facing businesses were connected to wider social, economic and environmental systems, making collaboration among businesses, communities, government and other stakeholders necessary for effective solutions.
Afe recommended materiality assessments and stakeholder mapping to help organisations identify where their resources could deliver the greatest value.
She said such approaches could help businesses move away from initiatives undertaken simply because they were convenient or readily available and towards interventions based on clearly identified and material needs.
Afe further stressed the importance of data and evidence in assessing the effectiveness of sustainability programmes.
“Measure what matters,” she said, encouraging practitioners to focus on indicators that demonstrate genuine progress rather than attempting to measure everything.
She said sustainability professionals should establish a clear link between an identified problem, the intervention designed to address it and the resulting outcome.
Beyond technical sustainability expertise, Afe identified commercial understanding, organisational awareness, data literacy, governance knowledge, stakeholder engagement and relationship-building as important capabilities for practitioners seeking to influence senior leadership.
She also encouraged professionals to understand Nigeria’s regulatory environment and keep pace with global sustainability developments while continuously mapping stakeholders, identifying emerging risks and recognising governance gaps.
On the progression of sustainability professionals into executive and board-level positions, Afe said practitioners needed to understand their organisations beyond their immediate functions.
“For you to be on the board, you must understand the business in totality,” she said.
She encouraged professionals to build relationships across departments and understand how decisions in different parts of an organisation affect overall performance.
Afe also urged sustainability practitioners to take responsibility for their professional development through continuous learning, professional networks, mentorship, sponsorship and opportunities for leadership visibility.
“You must develop, you must learn, you must continue to collaborate, you must continue to give yourself the opportunity and seize the platforms where you can be seen and heard,” she said.
The statement said Seplat Energy’s approach reflected the company’s commitment to embedding sustainability across its business strategy and operations.
It added that the company’s participation in the SPIN conference demonstrated its commitment to strengthening sustainability practice, building professional capacity and advancing discussions on responsible business and long-term value creation in Nigeria.
