Stories by Princewill Ekwujuru

As a successful global business concern,businesses understand that their actions and vision play a foundational role in ensuring the success of future generations.   They understand that their progress require that they invest in the regions and locations where they operate, building healthy, resilient communities.

While businesses exist to make profit, and this isn’t meant to change as a goal. The reality is that no organisation operates in isolation. CSR is about managing these relationships to produce an overall positive impact on society.

Since businesses thrive within communities they operate. Therefore they should take some responsibility for the wellbeing of its operating communities and also endeavor to manage the direct and indirect impact of its business activities. And this doesn’t always have to be in terms of money, but in terms of opportunities for advancement and growth.

Based on this premise, FBN Holding has undertaken several social responsibility drives and more. It’s been no doubt in the mind of the management of the company that the communities where its people live and work have been instrumental to its success. That must be why a major aspect of the Group’s citizenship is the “Supporting our Communities” platform, which has helped it build its various communal impacts through commitment to the fundamental areas of education, health, welfare and economic empowerment. Today, as one of Africa’s leading brands, it appreciates the need for supporting ideas and enabling the dreams of individuals within the communities where it operates.

In terms of “Environmental Sustainability,” the Group has endeavored to focus on initiatives that serve to minimize carbon footprints, while promoting wildlife and biodiversity conservation and preservation towards carbon neutrality in partnership with relevant bodies.

Presently, it is working on the more comprehensive Environmental, Social & Governance Management System (ESGMS) as part of its structured approach to embedding sustainability and minimizing adverse environmental and social impacts.

Riding on its rich tradition of giving back to society and nurturing intellectual development, which dates as far back as 1978, when the Group started the National Essay Competition where winners gain automatic employment among other prizes, FBN Holdings has continued to impact lives, operating through specific strategic programmes.

In partnership with the Lagos Empowerment and Resource Network (LEARN) and Junior Achievement Nigeria (JAN), FBN Holdings has been driving career counselling & Financial Literacy for young ones through the Future First programme, designed to empower students of secondary schools between the ages of 13 and 17years. Through their collaboration with JAN, the Group has been providing students with the tools and knowledge required for long term financial independence, availing senior secondary school students of practical business experience through the organization and operation of an after-school business enterprise.

Another Community Support initiative of the Group is the FirstBank Infrastructural Development programme, which has been promoting infrastructure development in schools and hospitals, in recognition of its importance in improving the quality of life.

In recent years, the programme has seen it support projects like the Faculty of Arts Building at the University of Port-Harcourt, the Entrepreneur Centre at the University of Abuja, the Sports Pavilion for Queens College, the Squash Court for Kings College, an Administrative Block for Jesuit Memorial College, a Red Cross Clinic in Ibadan, the Langbasa Potable Water Projects in Eti Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State, a 500-seater lecture theatre for the Federal University of Technology Akure and a Solar Lightening Project in Kirikiri Town, Apapa, Lagos.