As Africa’s sustainability agenda gathers momentum, from climate finance and circular economies to green infrastructure and inclusive growth. One vital component remains underpowered: the narrative.
Despite a continent brimming with innovation and resilience, African voices remain marginal in global ESG discourse. Local efforts are often mischaracterized, overlooked, or filtered through a lens of outdated assumptions. That’s why, in late 2024, four professionals (Tuoyo Amuka-Pemu, Bankole Oloruntoba, Victory James Ugwudike, and Uade Ahimie) came together to found Sustainable Stories Advocates Limited (SSAL), a pan-African platform designed to elevate the continent’s sustainability journey through strategic media collaboration.
We created SSAL with a clear conviction: Africa’s sustainable future must be told by Africans - authentically, accurately, and ambitiously.
A Spark at the Right Moment
It began with a chance reunion at an ESG finance event at the Oriental Hotel in Lagos. Tuoyo and I had both worked in the oil and gas sector in the 2000s, he at the innovative MAD House, I in business finance, strategy and governance. Our paths diverged, but media was our shared obsession. Years ago, we’d even floated the idea of a new digital journalism platform. That idea didn’t survive the timing.
We created SSAL with a clear conviction: Africa’s sustainable future must be told by Africans - authentically, accurately, and ambitiously.
But in November 2024, our conversation shifted from nostalgia to urgency. We realised that the continent’s accelerating sustainability transition, driven by climate risk, economic reform, and demographic pressure, had no dedicated, credible storytelling vehicle. The world was changing, and Africa’s ESG breakthroughs were not being documented with the depth or clarity they deserved.
The opportunity was clear: build a media and communications platform grounded in Africa’s realities, yet fluent in global ESG language.
From Idea to Institution
Joined by two more collaborators: Victory James Ugwudike, a strategic communicator with a passion for impact narratives, and Bankole Oloruntoba, a systems thinker with deep roots in entrepreneurship and development finance. Together, we registered SSAL in April 2025, not simply as a media company, but as a purpose-driven storytelling engine for Africa’s sustainability ecosystem.
Our mission? To close the credibility gap in African ESG by delivering data-informed journalism, facilitating stakeholder dialogue, and amplifying local innovations that remain hidden in the shadows of global media.
Why Storytelling Matters in ESG
ESG is more than compliance. It’s a lens for evaluating progress, risk, opportunity and most critically, legitimacy. Yet, African ESG is often underreported or misrepresented, with little appreciation for context. A successful clean-cooking initiative in Kaduna or a biodiversity innovation in Kivu may go unrecognized, while flawed assumptions about the continent’s “readiness” for climate finance persist.
This disconnect isn’t just bad for perception. It suppresses capital flows, undermines policy alignment, and distorts investment priorities.
SSAL seeks to reverse that. We translate complex frameworks into narratives that resonate. We humanize emissions data with real stories from vulnerable communities. We bring visibility to under-the-radar successes from youth-led water conservation projects in Lagos to community solar schemes in Senegal.
Journalism with a Purpose
We’re not neutral in this mission. Our work is values-driven and policy-aware. SSAL is designed to hold power accountable, push for implementation, and connect the dots between policy ambition and everyday reality. Our editorial strategy reflects that:
- We investigate gaps, in policy, in delivery, in transparency.
- We track progress on the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
- We elevate community voices that rarely make it into formal reports or donor assessments.
Our partnerships span journalists, civil society, investors, regulators, and academics. Because no single actor owns the ESG narrative, collaboration is key.
The Timing Is Critical
Nigeria is preparing to host COP32 in 2027. The government has committed to achieving a $1 trillion economy by 2031, partly through green growth. Across the continent, carbon markets are expanding, fintech is powering climate-smart agriculture, and youth-led enterprises are rewriting what inclusive innovation looks like.
Yet, media coverage remains reactive, fragmented, and disconnected from systemic insight. SSAL steps into that vacuum not just to report, but to catalyze.
We see every story as an entry point to something larger: policy debate, capital mobilization, cultural shift. By convening voices across silos public, private, grassroots, we aim to influence decisions and drive outcomes.
From Platform to Movement
SSAL isn’t simply a company it is a platform for authorship, accountability, and ambition. Our goal is to spark a continent-wide movement of narrative sovereignty in sustainability. Because when Africans tell their own stories with clarity, rigor, and pride, and for the rest of the world to listen differently.
Already, we are building pipelines of original reporting, launching multimedia content series, and designing stakeholder roundtables that inform and influence.
We want investors to see beyond risk. We want policymakers to hear lived realities. We want African youth to see themselves not just as climate victims, but as global actors shaping the green transition.
The Story Ahead
Africa’s future will not be dictated by international headlines. It must be authored from within, by those living the complexity and crafting the solutions.
At SSAL, we believe in the transformative power of narrative. Not as spin, but as substance. Not as branding, but as infrastructure. Our journalism is built to move capital, shape frameworks, and inspire action. Because the next decade is not just about hitting targets. It’s about telling the story of how we got there and who made it possible.
That story is Africa’s to tell. And we are here to make sure the world hears its.
