By Peter Okolie
The Director-General, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Dr Innocent Barikor, has warned of a looming environmental disaster unless Nigeria urgently shifts from destructive linear production models to a circular economy.
Barikor gave the warning on Friday during a South-East zonal workshop on “Introduction to Circular Economy and Green Financing” in Owerri.
Represented by the South-East Zonal Director of NESREA, Mr Nosa Aigbedion, Barikor warned that relentless resource exploitation without recovery threatens future survival.
“The circular economy encourages us to move away from the traditional take, make, use, and dispose model.
“The agency highlights the green economy as a vital framework that promotes energy efficiency and economic growth while prioritising the protection of the environment and reducing carbon emissions,” he said.
Barikor also warned that if continuous exploitation persisted, “there will be nothing to take away again.”
He called for strategies to eliminate waste, reuse materials and recycle resources.
Speaking subsequently in his capacity as Zonal Director, Aigbedion called on industries to adopt zero-to-landfill strategies to avert catastrophic environmental degradation.
“Circular economy is looking at a zero to landfill, such that when you take raw material and you produce, that waste becomes raw material,” Aigbedion said.
He decried open-air burning and advocated the use of industrial incinerators to convert hazardous waste into usable ash for sectors such as cement manufacturing.
Aigbedion urged companies to embrace industrial symbiosis, recommending shared infrastructure to drastically reduce toxic emissions and operating costs.
Reinforcing the looming danger, a toxicology expert, Prof. Taiwo Adewale, warned that unchecked industrial expansion posed severe public health threats, including cancer, food poisoning and brain damage.
Adewale cited battery recycling operations in Oyo State, where heavy lead runoff contaminated local drinking streams, causing severe poisoning among children and reducing their intelligence quotient.
“Without us looking at all these things, we cannot get to a circular economy,” Adewale emphasised, advocating Risk-Based Screening Levels to evaluate toxic hazards.
Another expert, Prof. John Oyedepo, said transitioning to a circular economy required capital but stressed its necessity, warning that neglecting environmental stewardship amounted to “a war of self-destruction”.
To fund capital-intensive environmental projects, Oyedepo highlighted green loans, green bonds and blended finance, citing a university that secured a World Bank green loan to install 6,000 solar panels.
Oyedepo further highlighted carbon finance opportunities, explaining that projects that reduced carbon dioxide emissions could generate carbon credits for trading in international markets to secure funding.
“Achieving green funding requires meeting strict Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards.
“Your proposal must be bankable and demonstrate strict safeguard compliance, continuous monitoring, and reporting,” Oyedepo stressed.
He also highlighted the economic value of recycling and resource recovery, calling for greater action and declaring that “waste is not waste until you waste it.”
Similarly, the Managing Director of ACCAPPOCCO Global Services Nigeria Ltd., Mr Opone Ottis, stressed that circular practices could generate jobs while improving access to green financing.
Ottis commended the Federal Government’s efforts to introduce green compliance certificates, saying official endorsements could facilitate tax rebates and build global trust for international business deals.
He called on industries to shift from linear production to a circular economy, where one company’s waste could become another company’s raw material. (NAN) www.nannews.ng
Edited by Funmilayo Adeyemi