By Kayode Tokede
Leading West African Commercial and industrial solar power and cooling provider, Starsight says Ecobank is well placed to be the market leader in the establishment of ‘Green Branches’ across the country.
According to Starsight it has so far delivered more than 100 branch facilities with its market leading renewable energy solutions, reducing Ecobank Carbon footprint and making Ecobank one of the market leaders in the implementation of renewables in the Nigerian Banking sector.
It went further to state that Ecobank is well placed to be the market leader in ‘Green Branches’ with an addition of 50 Branches scheduled to go live in Q1 2021.
Presenting the Starsight Renewable Energy Sustainability Award for 2020 to Ecobank in Lagos, Teme Jack, Head Sales, SMEs, Starsight Energy, lauded the commitment of Ecobank towards application of renewable solutions thereby reducing carbon footprints, stressing that the award was well deserving. She was optimistic that Starsight partnership with Ecobank would further go a long way to environmental sustainability.
“Our partnership with Ecobank has delivered an outstanding result in a short window time and we look at forward to expanding our partnership in Nigeria and other geographical regions of operations.”
Receiving the award, Kola Adeleke, Ecobank Nigeria Executive Director, Corporate Bank said, “Sustainability remains an essential part of Ecobank’s mission and vision of building a world-class Pan-African bank. Our long-term success is intertwined with the sustainable actions that supports the development of Nigeria and Africa as a continent. Ecobank is focused on mainstreaming environmental and social best practices in its operations and has adopted various Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) frameworks including the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles (NSBP) as benchmarks for measuring its environmental stewardship. We have been in partnership with Starsight Energy to deliver a market-leading renewable energy solution across our branches in Nigeria, they have delivered over 100 branches facilities with renewable energy solution, thereby reducing our carbon footprint and making Ecobank one of the market leaders in the implementation of Principle 2 of Nigeria Sustainable Banking initiative,” he stated.
Further, Adeleke reiterated that to “Ecobank Group Sustainability framework is focused on four thematic areas which includes: Economic Transformation, Environmental Sustainability, Socially Responsible Financing and Human Capital Development. These focus areas are aligned with the tenets of the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles (NSBP). Besides, Ecobank is a signatory member of a number of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) framework including the Equator Principles and the United Nations Global Compact. We have set a target of achieving the goals as regard SDG/Climate change and society’s wellbeing. For instance, the Bank is committed to taking bold steps to reducing our carbon footprint, demonstrated in carbon emission from our business operations, travels, paper use and office waste disposal. We further commit to invest in energy efficiency by incorporating the use of renewable energy products and practices, design architecture for energy efficient building in new branch expansions, including retrofitting programmes; as well as mainstreaming sustainable practices in third party contractor’s agreement for supply and procurement activities.”