Africa-focused energy independent Seplat Energy Plc has credited the prioritisation of sustainability as a core business strategy with strengthening its ability to manage risks, improve decision-making and create long-term value across its operations.

Seplat also urged other businesses to move beyond treating sustainability as a corporate social responsibility initiative.

Director of External Affairs and Social Performance, Dr Chioma Afe, said the company’s experience showed that sustainability delivers greater value when it is embedded in business strategy, operations and decision-making rather than isolated within a CSR function.

Dr Afe spoke at the 2026 Sustainability Conference of the Sustainability Professionals Institute of Nigeria (SPIN) in Lagos, where sustainability professionals and stakeholders examined the capabilities required to help organisations navigate volatility and build resilience.

In addressing issues around “The Future-Ready Sustainability Professional: Skills for Navigating Volatile Times,” she said Seplat Energy’s strategic review in 2020–2021 marked an important shift in the company’s approach, with sustainability repositioned from an initiative focused largely on community interventions to a core component of the business capable of driving returns and managing risks.

“Sustainability should not be viewed as a cost centre. It’s a risk management tool,” Afe said.

The approach, she explained, has helped place sustainability within the wider architecture of Seplat Energy’s business, requiring functions such as operations, legal, procurement, finance and human resources to recognise their responsibilities in identifying and managing sustainability-related risks.

This integration, according to Afe, enables sustainability considerations to become part of routine corporate decisions, helping businesses anticipate risks, allocate resources more effectively, protect value and build resilience against increasingly interconnected economic, social, environmental and regulatory pressures.

She said the experience also demonstrated why sustainability professionals must develop a strong understanding of commercial realities and be able to show how sustainability initiatives contribute to solving actual business problems.

Rather than simply implementing projects and reporting activities, she said, practitioners should be able to identify the risks being addressed, explain the business case for interventions and demonstrate the value created.

The benefits extend beyond individual companies, Afe argued, because many of the challenges confronting businesses are connected to broader social, economic and environmental systems. This makes collaboration among companies, communities, government and other stakeholders essential to achieving sustainable outcomes.

“We should stop funding random acts of kindness,” she said, urging organisations to first establish the business or societal challenge they intend to address before committing resources.

She advocated the use of materiality assessments and stakeholder mapping to help companies determine which issues matter most to their businesses and stakeholders. Such an approach, she said, enables organisations to direct resources towards interventions based on clearly identified needs rather than projects undertaken simply because they are convenient or readily available.

For corporate operations, this prioritisation can translate into more efficient allocation of capital, stronger stakeholder relationships, improved risk management and greater accountability for outcomes. It can also help companies identify emerging threats early and align business decisions with changing regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations.

Afe stressed that data and evidence must underpin such decisions, urging sustainability professionals to focus on measurable outcomes.

“Measure what matters,” she stressed.

She explained that practitioners should be able to establish a clear connection between an identified challenge, the intervention designed to address it and the outcome achieved. Initiatives that cannot demonstrate meaningful impact, she added, should be subjected to scrutiny to determine whether they are delivering genuine value.

Beyond risk management and resource efficiency, Afe identified sustainability as an increasingly important element of corporate governance and leadership. She said professionals working in the field need commercial awareness, organisational understanding, data literacy, governance knowledge, stakeholder engagement and relationship-building skills to influence senior decision-makers.

She also encouraged practitioners to understand Nigeria’s regulatory environment while keeping abreast of global sustainability developments, emerging risks and governance gaps.

Dr Afe said the strategic importance of sustainability also makes it increasingly relevant to corporate leadership and boardroom decision-making, arguing that professionals seeking executive or board positions must understand how their functions connect with the organisation’s overall performance.

“For you to be on the board, you must understand the business in totality,” she pointed out.

She explained that sustainability professionals who remain confined to their functional responsibilities could struggle to demonstrate how their work contributes to broader organisational objectives. Building cross-functional relationships and understanding the interdependence of business decisions, she said, are therefore critical to both organisational effectiveness and career progression.

She further urged practitioners to invest continuously in professional development, professional networks, mentorship, sponsorship and 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.

Seplat Energy’s experience illustrates the broader business case for sustainability, particularly in an industry exposed to significant operational, environmental, regulatory and market risks. By integrating sustainability into its core strategy, the company has positioned it as part of the process through which risks are identified, business decisions are assessed, stakeholder interests are considered and long-term value is pursued.

The strategy is also consistent with Seplat Energy’s broader objective of building a sustainable business and delivering energy transition while providing affordable, reliable and sustainable energy to support social and economic prosperity.

Afe’s position therefore places sustainability beyond the traditional boundaries of corporate philanthropy. Properly integrated, it becomes a business tool that can strengthen resilience, improve governance, sharpen investment decisions, enhance stakeholder confidence, anticipate regulatory and operational risks and ensure that corporate interventions produce measurable economic and social value.

As businesses contend with increasingly volatile markets and interconnected risks, Seplat Energy’s experience suggests that sustainability is most effective when it is treated not as an additional corporate obligation, but as a central part of how the business is managed, how risks are controlled and how long-term value is created.