CEIL set agenda to prevent green washing through AI, Digitisation

Centre of Excellence for Innovation and Leadership (CEIL) has set a roadmap for the Prevention of Green Washing through the use of Artificial intelligence (AI) and Digitisation.

This was made public at a sustainable conference organised by CEIL recently at the NECA House at Alausa in Ikeja, Lagos.

Dr Julius Abanshebe Akpong, a PhD holder in Climate Change and Sustainability, the Co-founder of CEIL and the Convener of the conference, said that CEIL is the channel through which he demonstrates his passion for sustainability. “My passion is sustainability and CEIL is where I demonstrate that passion.

My passion is to see people go to work and come back safely.

He said, “Green Washing has been in my mind for quite a long time, but I have been doing it as a matter of conscience. However, I have always wondered how we can generate opportunity to ensure that the world hear about green washing to avoid faking things, if we say we are doing sustainability, for instance, when a company announced it has a passion for sustainability, and you don’t treat your employees right, you are not sustainable organisation because very soon people will find out and they will not work for you any more, you can’t attract good talent.

“Secondly you said that you are a sustainable organisation but all the waste that come out of your process is dumped on the environment, it means you don’t understand, the company is not learned enough to understand that the environment belongs to all of us. It is not learned enough to understand that the plants are our brothers, the company is not learned enough to understand that the animals are our sisters, but at the end of the day the air that we breathe out, the plants collect it, the plants produce oxygen which we breathe in, at the end of the day, it is fantastic for us to understand that we live in unison with every member of the environment, both the flora and the fauna,” he said.

He spoke further that companies that refused to treat the environment fairly are not sustainable. “So when companies jettison this, they themselves are not sustainable, because what happens is that people will start avoiding organisations that are not sustainable, and while people are making use of AI to photoshop things to make things look finer than they are, we also know how to use AI to prevent this photo-shopping to ensure we do it right.

“So that is why we are using this conference to speak to the world to say this AI and Digitisation that have come when everybody is with their phones, you can even be in a family meeting and people are not listening to the conversation, they are on their phones, so we want to use this conference to show them how to use this avenue they are passionate about to help make the world a better place.

“It is important for all of us to make this world a better place. And if we don’t speak for the planet, then who will? It is very very important, that is why the Centre of Excellence for Innovation and Leadership is committed to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, we set it up as a cosmopolitan organisation to pool efforts in the line of achieving this mission of the United Nations and the conference is free of charge. We are not charging, we are NGO committed to doing this, we are using our development partners who have contributed in tremendous ways to do this.”

On plans to collaborate with government to make it more robust he said, “Everybody goes to Government, but as individuals we want to show that as organisations we can chart a course.

“When we started this organisation about four years ago, we started by organising debates in schools to help children understand this things, from there we organised professional debates with sustainability professionals and now we have stepped it up with the conference. This year is one day conference, next year may be two days, now from there we can invite Government, United Nations, they will be invited to the next conference, we will get much bigger venue because we are going to add more development partners. CEIL has collaborated with organisations to renovate kitchens, at Correctional Centre for Boys at Oregun, Ikeja here, training for school children, that is why you see some of them here, we have delivered lectures, market clean ups, we have done quite a lot, and we preach to people each time we go out, so we have done quite a lot,” he said.

Dr Monica Nonso, Executive Director, Training, CEIL, said “We are here because it is really important to talk about this important subject, it is one of its kind, a sustainability and innovation conference. The word sustainability has become a household name, because of the reality of what we face today. We all live on the planet and the truth is that the way and manner we have conducted our activities have negatively impacted our environment, and that environment is now revolting, fighting back, this conference is to put our heads together, to deliberate and proffer solution in order for us to salvage our planet.”

She added “One of the things we can do especially by  using tools like AI is to be able for us to assess where we are currently. I tell you that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they are 17, and out of the 17 goals, we have about 169 targets to be met by 2030. So one of the things AI can enable us to do is to help organisations streamline. To know that each of these goals each one of them are important to us. Is it the way we use our water, is it the way we use our natural resources, is it the way we consume our energy, our electricity consumption, is it the way we manage our waste, it can help us analyse where we are, to help us analyse in more practical terms, what areas we should be focusing on. So if we are talking about management of waste for instance, how best can we know the amount of waste we generate and how can we reduce the amount of waste we generate, and if we are not able to reduce it, how can we translate this waste into wealth,” Nonso stated.