*Bags Community Capacity Building & Sustainability award
Dr Chioma Nwachuku, Director External Affairs & Sustainability, Seplat Energy (3rd left) the award recipient for Community Capacity Building and Sustainability at the recently concluded Africa Women in Energy Forum, Houston,Texas, to her right Charles Sokeinaye, Sustainability Manager and Adeola Daodu, Brand Coordinator of Seplat Energy, and Judith Oloughlin a guest at the event.
Diversity and inclusion in the energy sector strives to harness the strength, knowledge and expertise of erstwhile excluded groups of people and goes beyond just gender, race, age, disability status, and ethnicity, among others.
“The importance of diversity in all walks of life cannot be overemphasized, as well as the dangers of exclusion. Diversity in the workplace is much more than checking a box. Research has shown repeatedly that more diverse workforces are better for innovation, result in happier and more productive employees, and increase retention levels. These dividends ultimately drive economic growth and sustainability globally,” these are the words of the Director, External Affairs and Sustainability, Seplat Energy Plc, Dr Chioma Nwachuku.
Nwachuku was the lead speaker at the Africa Women in Energy Forum, with the theme “Improving Diversity, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in the Energy Sector,” organised by Energy Corporate and Africa, which held in Houston, Texas on Wednesday.
According to her, it is proven that the value of decision-making benefits from the strength of diverse perspectives. In the Energy sector, embracing Diversity will be vital for companies looking to drive value creation cum retention toward realizing sustainable business goals in short, medium and long terms, she added.
On how to improve diversity and inclusion in the energy sector, Nwachuku stated that there are still many gender barriers and stereotypes that must be broken for the industry to move forward and reach its full potential, particularly with the energy transition drive.
She said: “Strengthening gender diversity in the energy industry requires unrelenting long-term efforts to boost inclusion. Although there is a growing demand for talent, the industry currently faces a significant challenge in finding and retaining talented staff in a competitive global market. The energy sector needs to recruit aggressively in the next decade to enable its workforce to keep pace with the energy transition.
“To truly foster innovation and equity, recruitment needs to include goals to improve diversity within the energy industry. Employees with different backgrounds and lived experiences bring their unique strengths to help teams tackle problems, uncover new ideas, and create the right environment for innovation to thrive.
“McKinsey’s ‘Diversity Matters’ report found that: “Companies in the top quartile for gender or racial and ethnic diversity are more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians. Conversely, companies in the bottom quartile in these dimensions are statistically less likely to achieve above-average returns.”
“Hence, creating gender equity needs to be supported at all levels of an organization and is everyone’s responsibility. It starts with leading by example. Walk the talk, be supportive and unafraid to call out biases, and then own the opportunity to identify and address them. Leaders play a crucial role in ensuring gender equity and can achieve this through hiring, development and succession to ensure gender balance and equal opportunity.
“•We need to also work on the supply of this talent by boosting the number of women entering STEM programmes, which will enable us to achieve gender-balanced recruitment.
“•When the recruitment hurdle is scaled, we need to look at ways to mitigate the limits to opportunities for certain types of operational jobs for women.
“•We need to address harmful stereotypes about job roles and advancement opportunities that unnecessarily hold women and men back across the talent pipeline.
“•The female gender makes up 48 per cent of the world workforce population. It will be beneficial to capture the value of inclusion of this human resource in the workforce that will drive the future of the Energy sector.”
The Energy Corporate and Africa team also presented to Dr. Nwachuku the “Community Capacity Building & Sustainability” award for her outstanding contributions in community development and sustainability in Seplat’s areas of operation.
