In the modern business environment, a successful strategy incorporates programmes that cater to the needs of all stakeholders, including host communities. This is what has been referred to as Creating Shared Value. The concept of Shared Value was first introduced in a Harvard Business Review article which had the title: “Strategy & Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility.”
Between 2011 and 2012, Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer introduced the concept of shared value into the corporate management lexicon. They reasoned that the central premise behind Creating Shared Value is that the competitiveness of an organization and the wellbeing of the communities around it are mutually dependent. Therefore, organizations should conduct business in such a way that all stakeholders receive value from the operations of the organization.
Through its activities, Accugas, a company majority-owned by the UK-listed entity Savannah Petroleum plc, has demonstrated that it understands the concept of shared value. Within its operational areas, which are largely located in Akwa Ibom State, Accugas has shown that strategic intervention in host communities is key to sustainable development, peaceful coexistence and growth. The company’s wide ethos has ensured that it is able to develop and add value, not only to customers but also to its employees, host communities and contractors, thereby creating a wide web of shared value.
Essentially, Accugas recognizes the important role that all stakeholders play in its success story and places responsibility and transparency at the heart of its business, operating in a unique environment amongst its peers in all areas of sustainability as a holistic strategy for its business. The company aims to be the industry leader in its sector, known for the quality of its disclosures on sustainability performance and programmes.
True to its commitment, Accugas continues to align its Sustainability Report with the Global Reporting Initiative’s G4 Reporting Standard with references to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards.
The company announced its membership of the Initiative of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights Association a few years ago. As the first indigenous oil and gas company in Nigeria to achieve this feat, it continues to strive to demonstrate through its policies and practices, the determination to maintain the safety and security of its operations within an operating framework that ensures respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Strategic community interventions
Accugas Limited is a subsidiary of Savannah Petroleum plc with a focus on sales, marketing, processing and distribution of gas to the domestic Nigerian market. With over $1 billion invested in gas development, processing and transportation infrastructure including 260km pipeline network, Accugas currently supplies natural gas to some power generating plants which deliver about 10% of national power output. In addition to this, Accugas has undertaken a number of important interventions in its host communities. The list includes strategic interventions in education, healthcare, human capital development, and direct empowerment of otherwise unemployed youths across several communities, in Akwa Ibom state.
For instance, the company has executed rural electrification projects and provided solar-powered water boreholes in some communities which lack access to potable water. Some of these communities that have benefitted from electrification and water borehole projects include (but are not limited to) Ikot Nsung, Ikot Enyiene and Minya Ikono in Uyo LGA, Edem Idem Ibesit in Oruk Anam LGA and Nung Oku in Uruan local government area of Akwa Ibom State. Others are Eyotai, Udung Adatang, Eniongo and Using communities in Udung Uko local government area of Akwa Ibom State.
Beyond this, the company is being proactive in its effort to improve living conditions in its footprint communities. Accugas rehabilitated, equipped and furnished the community health centre at Ikot Ekpo, in Calabar Municipal Council, Cross River State. The centre provides general healthcare such as immunization, treatment of minor ailments and maternity services to an area currently without a nearby general hospital.
Education is another area in which Accugas has made impressive strides. This is because the company considers education as key to tackling poverty, unemployment and social unrest. In this regard, the company renovated a number of classroom blocks, teacher’s quarters and offices, donated laboratory equipment, dual pupil desks, other teaching materials, tables and chairs for teachers to over 22 public schools spread across Akwa Ibom and Cross River State. This gesture has helped improve access to quality educational materials to aid learning and improve the performance of pupils in the selected schools.
Another novel initiative which was conceptualized by the company is the Green Team Initiative, an innovative stakeholder engagement programme which is aimed at asset protection through maintenance of Accugas’ pipeline network rights of way (“RoW”). The initiative has helped create a sense of ownership among people across communities traversed by the company’s assets.
“In a bid to ensure that our gas pipelines and associated RoW are safe, accessible and kept clear, clean, and fully operational, the Green Team Initiative was launched in June 2015 and is currently running smoothly across over 100 communities and pipelines RoW,” the company says on its website.
Over 200 youths across 17 LGAs have been engaged on a ‘call off’ basis via work orders, ensuring that the pipeline’s RoWs are periodically and regularly kept safe. This approach has helped promote harmonious interface between the company and the host communities.
A major lesson to be gleaned from the shared value model is that when different stakeholder interests are accommodated within the business plan, there is progress, delivery of targets and achievement of organizational objectives. Both Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer shared this conclusion.
Mutiu Yekeen is a Senior Media and Communications Executive at Caritas Communications Lagos
