The UN Global Compact Network Nigeria launched its Corporate Transition Series in June with an inaugural webinar on 4 June 2026, convening 83 business leaders and professionals to explore how global capital markets shape access to finance for Nigerian businesses.
The series responds to a shift that is now well underway. Sustainability considerations have moved from the margins of investment decisions into the pricing and structuring of capital itself, through green and sustainability-linked bonds, transition loans and a widening set of instruments. For Nigerian businesses, that shift determines both the cost of capital available to them and, increasingly, whether certain pools of capital are available at all.
The session examined sustainable finance instruments, transition financing and the investor expectations attached to them. Much of the discussion concerned what investors are actually looking for when they assess a company’s transition story, and how far that differs from what companies typically prepare.
Three critical readiness pillars framed the conversation. The first is strong ESG governance, establishing where responsibility sits inside the company and how decisions are made. The second is credible sustainability data, since claims that cannot be evidenced do not survive due diligence. The third is a robust corporate transition strategy that ties the first two to a plan investors can test.
Expert insights were delivered by Samuel Mary, Abraham DuroSawo and Daniel Mueller, drawing on both the investor and the issuer side of these transactions.
As the opening session of the series, the webinar set the terms for the sessions that follow, each intended to take companies further into the practical requirements of transition readiness.