FirstBank threw its weight behind the maiden conference of the Sustainability Professionals Institute of Nigeria held at Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos on Thursday, using the gathering to restake its claim as a bank that treats sustainable finance and responsible business as core work rather than a side project.
The first SPIN conference carried the theme The Adaptive Enterprise: Sustainability Strategies for Challenging Times. Sustainability professionals, business leaders, policymakers, regulators, bankers, academics and development partners packed the hall to talk through how organisations can stay resilient when the economy, the climate and social pressure all tighten at once.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Olusegun Alebiosu was billed as guest speaker. Executive Director, Risk Directorate, Bisi Olagbami stood in for him and delivered the address. Alebiosu said sustainability sits at the centre of FirstBank’s bid to remain a resilient institution that creates lasting value for every stakeholder, not only shareholders. In a world that is more tangled than ever, he argued, firms must also serve society and the environment. Supporting SPIN’s first conference, he said, is one way the bank keeps that conversation honest and advances responsible practice.
Through partnerships of this kind, Alebiosu added, FirstBank wants a future in which innovation, inclusion and care for the environment drive progress for companies, communities and the country. As an institutional member of SPIN, the sponsorship fits a wider agenda built around financial inclusion, economic empowerment and firm corporate governance. The bank has kept that pledge visible through work that helps businesses, communities and institutions leave a mark that lasts.
On the risk side, Alebiosu said FirstBank has just finished its Green Product Credit Policy, lining up lending standards with its Climate Policy, its Environmental and Social Management System, IFC Performance Standards and IFRS S1 and S2. The policy screens oil and gas, power, construction and agriculture so ESG checks sit inside underwriting rather than being bolted on later. In 2025 the bank screened 505 corporate deals for ESG risk, worth more than N10 trillion, up from 237 deals worth more than N3 trillion in 2024.
On the growth side, the bank is widening climate finance. That includes Alternative Energy Finance for individuals, Solar Financing for SMEs and a green mobility add on to vehicle finance. Alebiosu put it plainly: Nigeria’s shift to cleaner energy is first a financing gap, and banks are best placed to close it.
Speaking later on Sustainable Finance as a Catalyst for Resilient Growth, Olagbami said the idea sits at the heart of banking. Finance was never meant to be neutral. Every loan, credit line and investment quietly pays for a version of the future. The job of risk and finance people, he said, is to make sure that future is one the economy and the environment can carry.
FirstBank, he noted, looks at this from two angles at once. After more than 130 years it is a systemically important bank in Nigeria, so what it finances shapes whole sectors. Gross earnings of N3.4 trillion in the year just ended underline how large that duty is. From the risk desk, ESG is no longer a side chat next to credit risk. It is becoming a core input. A client’s exposure to climate transition, environmental liability and social licence now helps decide whether a loan stays sound over its full life, not only on day one.
When people call sustainable finance a catalyst for resilient growth, Olagbami framed it simply: it is about pricing the future correctly today for clients, shareholders and the economy everyone depends on.
SPIN President Professor Kenneth Amaeshi said the inaugural conference shows the institute’s aim to move sustainability past box ticking and into the centre of how organisations are led. Delegates worked through adaptive leadership, resilient business models, sustainable finance, ESG reporting, climate resilience, innovation, corporate governance and long term value creation. Other speakers included Ibrahim Shelleng, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Climate Finance and Stakeholder Engagement.
Zoyols News reports that FirstBank used the Lagos meeting to show how policy, screening numbers and new green products now sit inside the same story it has told for years about inclusion and governance.
