The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has vowed to crack down on listed companies failing to provide provable sustainability disclosures, warning that such firms risk losing access to long-term capital.
SEC Director-General, Dr. Emomotimi Agama made this clear during the launch of Nigeria’s 1st Corporate Sustainability Report (NCSR) by Norrenberger Research in Abuja. He highlighted that many listed companies still offer unstructured or unverifiable ESG (environmental, social, and governance) data, despite the market’s N130 trillion capitalization and N8 trillion in assets under management.
Agama pledged that SEC would take proactive actions like enhanced reporting guidelines, deeper company engagement, and incentives for strong sustainability adopters to drive best practices. He stressed that global institutional investors—from Norway’s sovereign fund to European pension funds—now prioritize ESG disclosures for capital allocation, making them essential for Nigerian firms seeking international funding.
Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment John Eno echoed this, noting Nigeria’s data gaps in ESG hinder policymaking, investments, risk assessment, and economic planning, and called for standardized, transparent sustainability metrics.
