Guinness Nigeria targets healthy environment through sustainable business operations

Determined to ensure that Nigeria joins other countries of the world to achieve the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Guinness Nigeria has adopted strategies that enable it attain healthy and sustainable business environment.

These strategies have been compiled as a report entitled ‘Sustainability: From Grain to Glass’ which the company unveiled at a moderate ceremony in Lagos recently.

The report, which comes on the heels of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, held in 2015, measures the progress made by the company against its set sustainability targets, which also serves as an expression of its commitment to embedding sustainability into its daily operations.

“We will sustain our ongoing drive to fully embed sustainability into our business operations because we recognise that our manufacturing activities generate carbon, waste and other effluents that could have a negative impact on the environment, if not controlled. Therefore, we have developed a sustainable strategy that is helping us reduce our environmental impact while increasing our positive social impact,” said Peter Ndegwa, managing director/CEO of Guinness Nigeria, at the unveiling of the report.

Giving insights into the report, the Guinness Nigeria boss pointed out that the company recorded 5 percent reduction in waste use in 2016 compared to 2015; waste to landfill increased by 21 percent while its relative CO2 emissions increased by one percent in the period under review.

“In future, we will work towards achieving zero waste to landfill by 2020 targets and to achieve this, we will accelerate the implementation of our 4R waste management strategy that focuses on reduction, reuse, recovery and recycling. We will also drive schemes that reduce our CO2 emission through initiatives like recovery of waste heat, which is reused as energy source for manufacturing and improve our packaging efficiency,” he explained further.

David Croft, Global Sustainable Development director of Diageo Group, who noted that the Group builds its business on value creation for the society, said that about 700 million world population do not have access to good water while in Nigeria close to 57 million people do not have access to good water.

According to him, government, consumers and businesses need to collaborate and tackle these global challenges that impact negatively on the world’s environment. He further said that the report highlights the company’s strategy in delivering on its set SDGs.

In her view, Ijeoma Nwagwu, a representative of the Lagos Business School (LBS), observed that sustainability report becomes very critical to the operations of Guinness Nigeria because it does not only help the company to build social trust but also helps it to improve relationship with its critical stakeholders.

Citing example, she said that the 10 percent reduction in the size of Lake Chad, which is the primary source of water for farming in the northern region, was one of the reasons that instigated the high rate of terrorism in the region.  

The sustainability report listed issues such as notable social investments in the Guinness Eye Hospitals; the flagship water of life scheme and the undergraduate scholarship scheme, which has opened doors of opportunity to many young Nigerians.

Guinness Nigeria has also continued to make notable economic impact in Nigeria such that in the 2016 financial year, the company paid over N16 billion in taxes ranging from Value Added Taxes, employee taxes, corporate income tax, excise duties and other taxes.

The company has outlined strategic objectives, hoping that their will put it in better position to serve its key stakeholders as well as help to strengthen corporate reputation and build a sustainable business environment.