By MICHAEL EBOH
Eight Nigerian banks, yesterday, signed an undertaking to prepare, activate and adopt sustainable lending principles within the next six months.

The new lending principle is aimed at ensuring increased awareness for environmental protection, social well-being and economic prosperity.

The eight banks which made this commitment in the presence of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi on the sideline of the Nigerian Sustainable Finance Week summit, held in Lagos, weekend, include: Access Bank Plc, Citibank Nigeria Limited, Diamond Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, GTBank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, Standard Chartered Bank Limited and Zenith Bank Plc.

The banks also agreed to develop their various internal capacity as required to manage their environmental and social responsibilities within the next 12 months.

To this end, the banks, in a joint statement of commitment to sustainable financing, also called the Nigerian Lending Principles, said they will be working with relevant stakeholders to develop the new lending principles and called on other banks to join in signing this commitments, with the aim of ensuring wider adoption of best practices and to ensure a responsible and sustainable banking sector in Nigeria.

According to the banks, they are prepared to, henceforth, take steps to ensure that their lending and investment activities are carried out responsibly, in line with international best practices and with due regard to the Nigerian context.

Speaking on the development, Sanusi Lamido said that the new lending principles will be taken to the Bankers’ Committee, “to make sure that all banks subscribe to the idea and begin to take steps towards the protection of the environment.”

According to him, “if the banking industry agrees not to lend to any company that does not meet certain environmental standards, they will be helping themselves, not just to make money, but also reproduce and recreate the environment, in which they can continue to have long term profitability”

He said further, “This process has come so far with the help of development partners. What we want to do now is place it on the agenda of the Bankers’ committee and make the banks themselves own this, and agree that this is the way they want to operate.

“We need to understand that as an industry, we will not continue to take savings and deposits from Nigerians and then lend to companies that will use the funds to destroy the environment. The long term survival of the system depends on the protection of the ecosystem”.