ABSTRACT
Across the globe, businesses have begun to pay closer attention to sustainability concerns as regards promoting long term economic, social, and environmental value. Aligning themselves with this trend, multinational oil companies (MNCs) operating in Nigeria have shown their ‘commitment’ to corporate sustainability by introducing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The crucial question, however, is whether the CSR initiatives incorporate all strands of corporate sustainability or whether there are gaps in this regard. This chapter addresses this question. It explores the corporate sustainability measures introduced by MNCs operating in Nigeria. It notes that while corporate sustainability has featured in the decisions and actions of MNCs, these initiatives have focused excessively on community development projects. Much less attention has been placed on environmental sustainability. Hence, there remains a gap with regards to the environmental dimension of sustainability. This gap is attributed to various factors some of which are discussed in this chapter.
Overall, this chapter argues that MNCs in Nigeria need to move beyond socio-economic CSR initiatives towards a more developed corporate sustainability model which adequately incorporates environmental measures. To achieve this, there is a crucial need for the Nigerian government to improve its regulation and oversight of MNCs.
