The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has emphasized the need to facilitate the issuance of green and sustainable instruments in the Nigerian capital market to assist in financing solar energy and other environmentally friendly infrastructure.
Director-General of the SEC, Lamido Yuguda stated this during the Environmental, Social and Governance Roundtable organised by the CFA Society Nigeria at the weekend.
Yuguda, while speaking on the theme: ‘Unlocking value through environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing’, said beyond the Federal Government and corporate issuers, sub-nationals can also take advantage of the growing appetite to issue bonds and finance relevant environment-friendly projects, especially those that are revenue generating and with reasonable social impact.
ESG is a method of analysing and reporting on how a company serves all stakeholders, including workers, communities, customers, vendors, shareholders and the environment.
He said companies will also need to continuously disclose relevant information on their adoption of ESG principles, stating that such information will be critical for the investing public to make informed decisions about available investment choices and guide their asset allocation.
According to him, another important step in the journey of promoting sustainable investment principles is the development of robust sustainability ratings and indices to track companies’ ESG performance
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