Shell Emerges Best Company in CSR

Shell companies in Nigeria have emerged the best in Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS) innovation, and also the best in sustainable stakeholder engagement at the 2015 edition of the Social Enterprise Report and Awards (SERAs) held in Lagos at the weekend. In addition, Dr. Uwem Ite, of The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC), was named Nigeria’s CRS Practitioner of the year. The awards aim to recognise corporate bodies who invest in society through CSR programmes. Reacting to the awards, Managing Director of SPDC and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria, Mr. Osagie Okunbor said, “While the SERAs and other awards encourage us and our Partners on our CSR programmes, the real encouragement for us are the lives that have been transformed through these initiatives, which is why we will continue to implement the programmes as part of our business in Nigeria.” Shell companies in Nigeria were among 62 corporate bodies assessed by a panel of experts drawn from the United Kingdom, the United States and Nigeria. The panel based their assessment on the outcome of field visits and verification of data. For the CSR Innovation award, Shell was lauded for the support of students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Benin and University of Lagos to build energy-efficient cars for the Shell Eco-marathon competition in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The support also enabled the University of Benin students to race at a similar competition in South Africa in 2014 where their car, TukeTuke, won the best designed car award. Shell won the Sustainable Stakeholder Engagement award mainly for the introduction of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) model in 2006.