Kitchen and Bathrooms Hardware CEO Mike Okeri shows Barclays Bank Coast manager Julian Muga and Seth Odongo, the Mombasa CEC for devolution, their appliances during the bank’s Business Club workshop for SMEs last year. PHOTO | WACHIRA MWANGI
Unlike in the past when businesses only cared about getting more customers and returning a bigger profit, the paradigm has shifted.
Today, we face a big challenge as business leaders to adopt sustainable practices that, while driving profitability in the short term, also resolve intrinsic societal needs and safeguard our environment.
World over, communities are grappling with concerns of environmental degradation, fast-growing populations faced with high unemployment, rising poverty levels, depleting natural resources, among other issues, that pose a serious threat to future generations.
As business leaders, we can look at these issues two-prong: we can see them merely as what constitutes a harsh operating environment; or we can look into the opportunities therein and develop relevant solutions that can be commercialised to drive long-term profitability, while benefiting our communities.
This is why organisations are increasingly recognising sustainability as a fundamental element of their survival.
As such, sustainability now sits at the heart of business strategies, operations and propositions. In essence, businesses are reconnecting company success with social progress.
For the financial sector, last year marked a key milestone in this journey when about 30 banks from around the world gathered in Paris for the Global Roundtable which culminated into the Principles for Responsible Banking.
On September 22, through our parent company Absa Group, we became one of the founding signatories of these principles, committing to strategically align our business with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
By signing the Principles for Responsible Banking, we have joined a coalition of 130 banks worldwide, representing over $47 trillion in assets, in committing to taking on a crucial role in helping to achieve a sustainable future.
As a business, we see this is a bold step that will guide, support and inspire our innovation on social and environmental challenges in line with our commitment to be a more active force for good, as we transition to Absa here in Kenya.
To do this, we will leverage our rich heritage and deep understanding of the continent to develop solutions that are tailored to address unique local challenges.
We have increasingly trained our focus on the big challenges affecting society and developing solutions to address them. For instance, cognisant of biting joblessness plaguing our country, we have invested significantly towards helping the young people acquire a quality education and transition smoothly into internships, jobs or entrepreneurship. Through the Ready to Work platform, we have so far impacted over 155,000 students.
Looking at the SME sector — our economic growth engine — studies have shown that 70 per cent of them fail within the first five years because of various challenges including difficulties accessing capital, limited access to market, lack of skills transfer, changes in technology and retention of talent amongst others.
To support the sector, our shared value strategy has focused on providing SMEs with the resources and skills requisite to grow. Through our Business Club, we have upskilled more than 10,000 businesses through the various structured programmes and helped them access international trade opportunities.
Through our Enterprise Supply Development solution which provides unsecured financing to SMEs operating within the value chains of our corporate clients, we are innovatively giving entrepreneurs easier access to finance to advance their businesses, supporting the entire business ecosystem.
We are making good progress towards making operations in our workplaces more environmental friendly. For instance, we have significantly reduced paperwork in our branches and our customers can now perform certain transactions without filling a single form. Additionally, we stopped sending out printed statements but instead encourage customers to use electronic versions unless it is absolutely necessary.
Additionally, we are currently piloting a drinking water solution that eliminates the use of plastics at our head offices with plans to roll out across our network in the coming month.
Our growth strategy allows us to go beyond just banking to become a more active force for good in our society. As such, playing a shaping role in society is one of the key drivers of our new purpose of bringing possibilities to life.
In conclusion, it is important to note that sustainability is not a complicated concept only relevant to big organisations. It simply means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
As such, we can all as Kenyans challenge ourselves at an individual capacity to take actions and make decisions that don’t compromise the quality of life of the future generations.
Awori is the CEO and Managing Director at Barclays Bank of Kenya.
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