A raft of regulations related to sustainability and ESG have entered into force in recent years, with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) among the most transformative for global agricultural businesses trading with the region.
Traceability remains a key focus of the legislation, which focuses on cocoa, soya, beef, coffee, palm oil, rubber and wood.
Under the new rules, which will be implemented from December 30, 2025, any trader who puts these commodities on the EU market must prove they have not contributed to forest degradation and do not originate from recently deforested land.
Nigeria-headquartered Sunbeth Global Concepts, which trades cocoa beans, cashew nuts, soya beans and sesame seeds of Nigerian origin, is well-versed in ensuring compliance with sustainability regulation like this.
Earlier this year, the commodity trader explained how opportunities for intra-African trade were growing and flagged the importance of partnerships for boosting access to finance.
Now, GTR speaks to Sunbeth’s managing director, Olasunkanmi Owoyemi, to discuss how Sunbeth is using ESG as a catalyst for growth and risk mitigation, and how the business is moving into expanding its processing capabilities.
GTR: How is Sunbeth leveraging its ESG efforts to appeal to investors?
Owoyemi: ESG is something that everyone is continuing to react to. There are many ESG-focused lenders now that provide a lot of funding and the focus on environmental and social responsibility is pushing some lenders to pursue only ESG-focused businesses. So ESG has created another level of interest from investors who purely want to finance certain companies, because their funds are ESG-focused.
When it comes to partners and investors, transparency in our reporting is one of the most important aspects.
GTR: How is ESG embedded into Sunbeth’s overall business strategy, and how has that evolved over the last five years?
Owoyemi: In the last five years, ESG has been embedded in everything we do at Sunbeth. One of the biggest things we have done has been in terms of sourcing to comply with changes coming into force for the cocoa industry – particularly the EUDR.
GTR: How is Sunbeth dealing with this influx of ESG regulations?
Owoyemi: The EUDR says you must source cocoa from deforestation-free environments, and these new standards have been what we have been working on for the past two to three years. Prior to the EUDR, we have been working on the traceability of cocoa, to source cocoa from farms which are free from child labour. We have also secured the Rainforest Alliance certification [a programme that aims to promote sustainable agriculture and forestry practices].
ESG is a core part of our business. If you don’t infuse ESG into your business in the current space in which we operate, you are not going to have a product to sell. You are going to lose value across your business. We are able to achieve a premium for being ESG-focused and championing ESG in our business, and it’s a key priority in the industry overall.
GTR: How is Sunbeth adopting tools and processes around traceability, ethical sourcing and local farming communities across its supply chain? Are there any stand-out approaches that have worked well?
Owoyemi: We adopt a mix of complementary tools supported by solid internal processes that we continuously review and strengthen. On traceability, for instance, we use a range of tools to map and verify that farms are not located in deforested areas, which is an important first step. We also have systems in place to track the movement of beans across the supply chain, and this has strengthened our readiness for the EUDR.
For ethical sourcing, we focus on addressing our most material issues. Child labour remains a major challenge in the cocoa industry, and to tackle this we have established a comprehensive child labour monitoring and remediation system. We also recently became the first Nigerian company to join the International Cocoa Initiative, the leading global NGO tackling the issue of child labour in the cocoa supply chain.
In terms of engaging with local farming communities, we conduct annual needs assessments to ensure the projects we implement are highly targeted and deliver real value.
Over time, what has worked really well is our ability to integrate technology with farmer-centred support because this helps us drive stronger farmer satisfaction and deliver more sustainable outcomes across our supply chain.
GTR: What are the biggest challenges with sustainability compliance and where are the opportunities?
Owoyemi: It’s a very cumbersome process. You need to map all the farms in West Africa that farm cocoa, soya and a lot of other products. The time frame is short and there are a lot of uneducated farmers, which makes it very difficult to do. A lot of resources are needed to do it, and it’s only possible to achieve this by mapping the farms in phases. We are transitioning into that.
There are many opportunities that come with it if you are able to do it well. If you are audited for it, and you pass the audit process, you are respected in the market. Apart from the respect, you are also guaranteed offtakes, because this is what people trading these commodities want. This is what the final users want. Everybody wants the tag of sustainable cocoa and sustainable products, because that endears them to the final consumers. For many, it’s the most important thing for them.
GTR: What is in Sunbeth’s five- and 10-year plans? How are short-term operational demands balanced alongside long-term ESG and diversification goals?
Owoyemi: We have three main aims over the next few years. The first key thing is for us to focus on our portfolio, which is agribusiness. The other focus is for us to expand rapidly within West African states. The third is for us to focus on the processing of all the products we export, so we are in a better position to provide more value to the origin producers.
GTR: What is driving Sunbeth’s shift from a raw commodity exporter to a processing-focused enterprise?
Owoyemi: In general, businesses keep evolving. We’ve traded for over seven years and we know how to buy the feedstock. We have been able to do all this in just few years, to safeguard our margins and our market share and to be competitive, and the next step has been to invest in processing.
In that way, we already know we can source what we need to put in the processing plant. If you start a processing plant without having sourcing capability, then there’s a mismatch. When we know we have sourcing capability, then we can set up a processing plant. We are evolving. Now that we have gone through the rudiments of trading, we are becoming fully scaled up.
We are focusing on cocoa, cashew and soya processing plants.
