BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY IN AFRICA

The Concept of Sustainability in Africa

Sustainability is on the agenda of every organisation. Often, this is driven by requirements from regulators, investors, or the need to demonstrate to employees and customers alike that theirs is a responsible brand. However, in most advanced companies, this reactive, compliance-driven approach has been replaced with the recognition that commercial sustainability and environmental sustainability are interdependent.

Defining a concise problem statement around the issue of managing corporate sustainability, however, remains a challenge. It involves many stakeholders’ perspectives and causes of environmental impact vary across industries and geographies. What we need is a solution framework which can be leveraged to enable analytical interventions to deliver end-to-end sustainability capabilities ‘as a service,’ in order to transform enterprises into sustainable businesses across a broad range of performance KPIs in Africa.

The Problem of Enterprise Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)

Climate change, damaged ecosystems, and depleted natural resources have made existing value chains and business models risky and unpredictable. A transition to a less damaging and more resilient and resource-efficient approach is vital for the future of every industry vertical. That is why all organisations must not only produce ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) reports but show exactly how they are making the transition.

However, defining a concise problem statement on managing corporate sustainability is a challenge. The issue is complex, it encompasses many stakeholder perspectives and their needs. There is no single cause of environmental impact, and factors vary from market to market, both vertical and geographic.

Currently, enterprise sustainability investments are often tactical, and in response to specific issues such as concerns about marine plastic. Many organisations have made advances in reducing the environmental impact of their operations, but this reactive approach can only achieve so much. The need of the hour is to make systemic improvements across value chains. Does the current approach enable corporations to balance the strategic triple bottom line of profit, planet, and people? Certainly, there is room for improvement. Hence, a need to step back from a reactive approach to consider the overarching market requirements.

Reports from industry associations and consultancies, as well as global standards, define key sustainability topics, for organisations in specific verticals, which are material to their business and stakeholders. Although the verticals appear very different, there are a lot of commonalities around the sustainability problems addressed by enterprises with some industry-specific characteristics. The narrative on sustainability for them primarily revolves around the following themes:

• Responding to evolving climate risks
• Investing in new plants, infrastructure, and business models
• Operationalising sustainability approaches
• Handling supply chain impacts and the disruption of supply chains due to climate change
• Managing scarcity of materials
• Adapting to increasingly complex reporting and regulation.

Thus, a need to create an African regional forum and network for the practice of sustainability in communities across the continent. Read more About ABSUC