MY TAKEAWAYS FROM UDOL'S SEMINAR ON EMBEDDING SUSTAINABILITY IN VALUE CHAINS

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Corporate sustainability is critical to environmental social governance and provides stakeholders including investors, clients, customers, employees, shareholders, and regulators with trust that an organisation is focused on reducing costs, minimizing risks and increasing resilience.


With my thirst for knowledge and quest to know more about corporate sustainability, I applied for and was accepted to participate in a free seminar on Embedding Sustainability in Value Chains of Public and Private Organisations which was organised by the University of Derby Online Learning. The training held in Abuja and had over 30 delegates from various disciplines ranging from Environmental Science to Law and from different parts of Nigeria.

The training session opened with the facilitator Dr Uchechukwu Okere (PhD), the Academic Lead for Environmental Management from the University of Derby, asking us to exchange ideas on if the private sector or the government should lead the drive for sustainability in Nigeria. We received lectures on understanding and developing sustainable supply chains which featured sessions on sustainability risks and opportunities, an overview of sustainable supply chains, challenges of embedding sustainability in supply chains, embedding sustainability in value chains, overcoming challenges in Nigeria.




The seminar ended with a group discussion activity on recommendations on overcoming challenges to embedding sustainability in Nigerian organisations. The outcome from this training for me was understanding and gaining knowledge on:

1. The role of the private sector in attaining sustainable development.

2. Corporate sustainability (which includes corporate social responsibility).

3. Sustainability stages model, and the Internal and external challenges of embedding sustainability.

4. Integration of environmental and sustainability concerns with supply chain management.

5. Solutions to the challenges in Nigeria’s sustainable value chain.

6. Communicating and reporting sustainability.



During discussions, some of the recommendations made were that real sustainability needs changes beyond what is currently obtainable, and there is the need to develop stable transformative policies for the private sector that will enable the transformation of our economy towards sustainability using data-driven and evidence-based advocacy, and with collaborations between organisations.

We also agreed on the need to ensure that Nigeria’s Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector which (according to PwC) contributes 48% of national GDP, accounts for 96% of businesses and 84% of employment understand ways to embed sustainability into their value chains.



In my opinion the program’s aim to provide an overview of embedding sustainability in value chains of public and private organisations and make recommendation for future success was achieved. The training boosted my confidence in having conversations on sustainability with the typical Nigerian businessman, and as well as catching up with some friends in the environment sphere, I also met so many new people who are passionate about the environment and want to make a difference, this for me was one of the best things about the programme.

For anyone who may be interested, I learnt of an online MSc in Sustainability and Environmental Management offered by the University of Derby Online Learning (www.derby.ac.uk/online). The course which aims to equip students with the skills they need to solve biophysical environmental problems and also embed sustainability within organisations can be taken 100% online and already has a number of Nigerian alumni and current students.

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