Zenith Bank was adjudged the Most
Responsible Organisation in Africa, winning the overall best sustainability
award, for its continued commitment to the tenets of Sustainability and
Corporate Social Responsibility, within its immediate community and in the
society at large.
Coca-Cola emerged winner in ‘Best Company
in Water and Sanitation’ and the ‘Social Enterprise of the Year’ categories, in
recognition of the company’s significant strides through the Replenish Africa
Initiative (RAIN) and various Special Intervention Programmes (SIP)
respectively.
The Sustainability, Enterprise and
Responsibility Awards (SERAS), which made its debut in 2007, and participation
was opened to other countries of Africa in 2016, is an initiative of TruCSR
that celebrates and promotes investments by corporate organisations in the
society through CSR and sustainability initiatives.
Ken Egbas, founder, the SERAS/CRO TruCSR,
said Africa has a lot to contribute to the future that the world desires.
However, he posits that it must happen with Africans as equal partners on the
table of decision-making and not the poor relatives of the developed nations.
“If today the world talks about social
responsibility as a new norm, they should remember that Africa embodied this in
our communal way of living in which the strong protects the weak.
“When the world talks about waste
management, recycling, and circularity, they will do well to take a cursory
look at how our forebears lived on zero waste,” said Egbas.
He equally charged both individuals and
corporate organisations not to get carried away by The SERAS trophy, rather be
reminded not of the works that earned them the honour; instead, it should
continue to remind them of what is still left to be done on the continent.
“The number of children we can give access
to education; the number of young girls crying for equal opportunities; the
hundred of millions who need access to drinkable water; the many millions dying
annually due to lack of access to healthcare; the teeming millions without
access to employment, and all those who have lost hope because they have gone
days without a meal,” Egbas stated.
Accordingly, he states further that
Africans can only beat their chest in achieving victory by resolving to
continue to be forces of good for the current generation and those beyond.