By Oke Epia, E-mail: sostainability01@gmail.com | WhatsApp: +234 8034000706
Washing and hushing
Nigeria's real estate and housing sector is expanding at a pace that is transforming entire cities. New estates, gated communities, and luxury towers are rising across Lagos, Abuja, and fast-growing peri-urban corridors, reshaping wetlands, coastlines, and land use patterns in the process. Yet this rapid physical expansion comes at a troubling cost.
Globally, buildings account for about 34 percent of energy demand and 37 percent of energy-related CO₂ emissions, with cement and steel adding nearly 18 percent more. In Nigeria, the residential sector consumes roughly 60 percent of national electricity, and estates rely heavily on diesel and petrol generators when the grid fails. Combined with a housing demand running into millions of units, the climate footprint of the sector is significant and set to grow.
In a sector with this scale of impact, one would expect leading real estate developers to be transparent about their climate responsibilities. But what our Sustainability Visibility Scan uncovered this week was the opposite. Across major firms shaping Nigeria's real estate market, climate policies, emissions reporting, targets, and governance structures are largely absent. The sector is building fast, but saying almost nothing about how it intends to operate in a climate-constrained future. It raises serious questions about readiness, accountability, and whether climate risk has entered boardroom decisions in one of the country's most consequential industries.
How we examined the sector
In the weeks up to November 22nd, 2025, our team conducted a comprehensive SOStainability Visibility Scan (SVS) across 11 leading real estate companies in Nigeria's housing and real estate sector. The SVS is designed to measure only what companies are willing to make publicly visible. All information used in this scan was taken strictly from official websites.
No consideration was given to claims made on social media, in interviews, or through third-party commentary. This approach aligns with the Climate Change Act, which places transparency and public accessibility at the centre of national climate governance. If climate information is not visible, it cannot support accountability, guide investor decisions, or signal readiness for regulatory compliance.
The scan evaluates visibility across four core dimensions: Climate Policy, Climate Reporting, Climate Targets, and Climate Governance. Each dimension is scored from zero to three, producing a total visibility score out of twelve. The SVS then categorises companies as Achieving Expectation, Approaching Expectation, Below Expectation,or Non-Starter. These categories reflect climate visibility only; they do not assess the accuracy or quality of any claims. Visibility is the baseline on which meaningful accountability must be built.
What we found company by company
Our scan shows a sector that is almost entirely invisible on climate, and the pattern is consistent across the companies assessed. The most significant finding is the near-total absence of climate policy across the real estate firms reviewed. Companies like Adron Homes, Landwey, Dutum Construction, and Brains and Hammers each publish CSR pages, but these pages say nothing about emissions, energy use, land impact, or climate risk. Their websites emphasise charitable outreach or community donations, but noneoffera structured climate policy that outlines how the business manages environmental risks. Others, such as UPDC, Land Republic, Sabreworks Real Estate, Besitz Group, and Veritasi Homes do not present any sustainability or environmental language at all. The scan shows zero policy visibility across these brands, meaning that some of the country's most active developers operate with no public-facing climate stance whatsoever. Even companies with slight signals, like Eko Development Company, frame environmental messaging as part of CSR rather than a guiding corporate commitment. Across the board, development is marketed as lifestyle, luxury or investment potential, not as an activity with climate consequences.
The reporting picture is even more alarming. With the exception of a single ESG-themed knowledge PDF linked by Knight Frank Nigeria, none of the real estate firms publish sustainability reports, environmental disclosures, or climate-related documentation. Dutum, Adron, Landwey, UPDC, PWAN Homes, Land Republic, Besitz, Sabreworks, Veritasi, and Brains and Hammers all show zero reporting visibility. Their websites contain no emissions data, no energy profiles for their estates, no information on generator reliance, and no ecological data on wetland loss, land reclamation, or soil impact. This absence of reporting creates a complete blind spot. Nothing indicates that these companies measure their emissions internally, let alone disclose them. For a sector responsible for high operational and embodied carbon, the lack of reporting is not a minor gap; it is structural invisibility that makes oversight, planning, and national alignment impossible.
The gap becomes sharper when analysing target visibility. Most companies do not present a single measurable climate target. Adron, Landwey, Dutum, UPDC, Land Republic, Sabreworks, Besitz, Knight Frank Nigeria, and Veritasi Homes all score zero for climate targets. They do not communicate commitment to energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy integration, waste reduction, water management, or any environmental performance metrics. PWAN Homes appears to have sustainability language on an alternative domain, but because it does not appear on the main website, it cannot count under the SVS guidelines. Only Brains and Hammers and Eko Development Company show minimal target visibility, and even then, their statements amount to aspirations rather than quantifiable commitments. The absence of targets suggests that climate risk is not yet integrated into operational planning. A company without targets is a company without a plan, and in a sector whose emissions span every stage of construction, operations, and land conversion, this is a fundamental weakness.
Governance visibility completes the picture of a sector unprepared for climate accountability. None of the firms disclose sustainability officers, ESG units, or climate governance structures. UPDC, Land Republic, Sabreworks, Besitz, Adron, PWAN Homes, Veritasi, and Knight Frank Nigeria show zero evidence of governance oversight. Dutum, Landwey, and Brains and Hammers reveal only minimal HSE-style references, which reflect operational safety rather than strategic climate oversight. Eko Development Company acknowledges environmental themes under CSR, but also provides no governance structure. Across the dataset, climate responsibility sits nowhere in the organisational chart.
The silence is telling: without governance, no policy can be implemented, no data can be collected, no targets can be set, and no climate strategy can exist. It is the strongest indicator that sustainability is not yet institutionalised within the sector.
Taken together, these findings show a sector moving fast in physical development while remaining almost completely stagnant in climate transparency. The companies building Nigeria's estates, apartments, and gated communities are not yet showing how they intend to manage the environmental and climate implications of their operations. This is not a marginal issue. It is the centre of the real estate sector's sustainability challenge, and it defines the risks Nigeria will face as the sector continues to expand.
The social cost: Who pays the price?
The absence of climate visibility in Nigeria's real estate sector is especially alarming because this industry is structurally high-emitting. Buildings account for well over one-third of global energy-related emissions, and Nigeria's residential sector already consumes a disproportionate share of national energy, largely due to generator dependence and inefficient building design. Every estate built without energy standards locks the country into decades of high operational emissions.
At the material level, real estate is powered by cement, steel, and aggregates, all of which carry significant embodied carbon. When companies such as Adron, Landwey, Dutum, UPDC, Land Republic, Sabreworks, and Veritasi operate without climate policies, targets, or reporting, it means the country's rising carbon footprint remains untracked and unmanaged. The consequences become clearer in Lagos and other cities, where wetland loss and land reclamation by developers deepen flood risk and erode natural buffers. Building collapses further compound this impact, turning structural failure into environmental waste and human tragedy. Without disclosure, these risks stay hidden.
The social consequences follow the same pattern. Real estate growth is increasingly linked to land grabbing, displacement, and the erosion of tenure security in peri-urban communities. Luxury developments raise land prices, pushing low-income families into more vulnerable settlements while flood risk shifts toward neighbourhoods stripped of natural protection. When companies like UPDC, Land Republic, Sabreworks, Besitz, and others publish no governance structures, no climate oversight, and no environmental commitments, the harms created by their activities remain invisible. The lack of governance not only undermines climate action; it leaves the social and environmental costs of development unaddressed and borne by the most vulnerable.
A sector missing from Nigeria's climate architecture
The silence on the climate across the real estate sector creates a direct conflict with Nigeria's national climate obligations. Buildings are central to the country's mitigation pathway, yet the updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) treats them only as part of the wider energy basket, relying on efficiency improvements and cleaner energy to cut emissions. When companies publish no climate policies, no reporting, and no measurable targets, it becomes impossible for national planners to model sector emissions accurately or track progress against climate goals.
The Climate Change Act was designed to correct this by placing transparency, reporting, and governance at the heart of national climate accountability. But without visibility from the sector shaping Nigeria's urban future, the Act cannot deliver its intended outcomes.
This is why real estate now stands at a crossroads. One path continues the culture of silence, where climate remains unseen and unmeasured. The other path accepts that visibility is the first step toward responsibility. A sector that influences land use, energy demand, and community safety cannot remain absent from Nigeria's climate architecture. Its future credibility depends on embracing transparency, not avoiding it.
Why investors, regulators, and communities should be concerned
The gaps identified in our scan matter because the real estate sector sits at the centre of Nigeria's environmental and social landscape. Every new estate influences how land is used, how energy is consumed, how cities expand, and who gets displaced in the process. When companies like UPDC, Adron, Landwey, Land Republic, Sabreworks, and Veritasi operate without climate policies, reporting, or governance structures, they are shaping the country's physical future with no visible plan for its climate or social consequences.
For investors, this creates long-term exposure to regulatory risk, higher operational costs, and reduced compliance with emerging global ESG expectations. For regulators, the absence of emissions data prevents accurate modelling, weakens national reporting under the NDC,and undermines the implementation of the Climate Change Act. For communities, the risks are far more immediate. Poorly governed development accelerates flooding, deepens inequality, fuels land conflicts, and increases the likelihood of unsafe structures.
A high-emission, low-transparency sector is not simply unprepared for Nigeria's climate transition; it is positioned to obstruct it. Real estate will continue to grow, but its growth must no longer come without visibility. Accountability is not a threat to the sector's future; it is the foundation of it.
Trends and Threads
NDC3.0: Embedding healthcare into climate policies
Nigeria, like the rest of the world, finds itself navigating a storm of intersecting realities occasioned by a rapidly changing climate. As heatwaves intensify, rainfall becomes erratic, floods sweep through communities, and vector-borne diseases expand their reach, the country's health sector is placed under unprecedented strain.The Nigerian health system is overstretched, underfunded, and is confronting climate-induced vulnerabilities deeply unprepared.
For decades, the health sector in Nigeria has been defined by systemic inadequacies: weak primary healthcare infrastructure, inconsistent access to essential medicines, brain drain that continuously empties hospitals of skilled professionals, and an urban-rural divide that leaves millions with little to no healthcare access. These structural weaknesses have always harmed national progress, but in the era of climate change, they have become even more dangerous. Rising temperatures, changing disease patterns, contaminated water sources, displacement, and mental health pressures are magnifying existing challenges, pushing the system closer to breaking point. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), climate change is projected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths every year between 2030 and 2050, primarily from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone. This statistic is not hypothetical for a country like Nigeria; it is a stark warning. With its high exposure to climate hazards and a health sector not yet equipped with climate-resilient systems, Nigeria stands among the countries most prone to these impacts. Its struggling health system reflects not only technical gaps but also deep-seated governance, planning, and investment failures.
Health at the heart of climate policy
As highlighted previously on this page, Nigeria's updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0) formally incorporates the health sector for the first time in the national climate commitment. This integration represents a turning point in Nigeria's recognition of health as a core climate priority. It signals that the nation finally acknowledges that climate change is not merely an environmental or economic issue, but a direct and present health threat. It acknowledges health as an essential pillar of climate planning, and that climate-sensitive diseases, emergency preparedness, infrastructure resilience, and clean energy access for hospitals should be embedded in national climate commitments. It means the country is expected to strengthen disease surveillance systems that can detect outbreaks influenced by changing temperatures and environmental shifts. It means critical healthcare facilities will be upgraded to withstand climate shocks through cleaner power sources, better waste management, climate-smart construction, and more reliable logistics systems, ensuring that hospitals do not go dark during heatwaves or floods.
The Health National Adaptation Plan (HNAP) outlines readiness and resilience actions ranging from governance reforms to capacity-building, community engagement, research, climate-sensitive disease control, early warning systems, and infrastructure reinforcement. While the plan seems to be comprehensive, a crucial question remains: what next? Even the most well-crafted frameworks are only as credible as their implementation. The plan's monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework exists to ensure transparency and accountability, yet the real challenge is ensuring that these mechanisms are operationalised, financed, and publicly reported on without delay.
Nigeria's pledge to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has ignited hope across communities. But it forces an honest reflection: can these reforms truly prevent health poverty where families are pushed into economic hardship by illness and inadequate care? And if climate impacts intensify, can a climate-unprepared health system deliver coverage that is equitable, sustainable, and accessible? These questions cannot be avoided. They form the backbone of the accountability Nigerians deserve.
A rights-based, sustainable approach matters
However, a climate-conscious health policy cannot succeed without prioritization anchored in justice and rights. Climate change is not an equal-opportunity crisis it hits hardest at those least responsible and least equipped to adapt. Rural communities, low-income households, women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities all stand disproportionately exposed. To address this, Nigeria must adopt a rights-based approach to climate and health action, ensuring that policies are participatory, inclusive, transparent, and accountable. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, guarantees every human being the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being. This includes the right to clean water, safe food, medical care, and environmental conditions that support healthy living. Nigerians deserve an environment that does not poison their air, contaminate their water, or endanger their lives through preventable climate-related diseases.
This responsibility extends beyond national borders as well. At COP29 in 2024, the WHO released a report which emphasised that health must be central to global climate negotiations. For Nigeria, this means seizing every international platform to advocate for climate finance targeted toward health resilience not as a peripheral issue, but as a fundamental priority. It is time for Nigeria to assert health as a core component of its climate diplomacy, ensuring that adaptation funds, technical assistance, and global partnerships explicitly support the protection of human lives.
Ultimately, the path ahead demands not only policy commitments but action. Nigerians want and deserve a health system that is strong enough to survive climate shocks and compassionate enough to protect the most vulnerable. They look forward to a future where the promises captured in NDC 3.0 are implemented faithfully, not shelved as unfulfilled aspirations. Every target set, every adaptation plan drafted, and every health commitment outlined must translate into real, measurable, transformative change. Climate change will not wait for Nigeria to catch up. The Nigerian government must invest boldly, redistribute resources equitably, and demonstrate unwavering accountability. Because the health of the nation is not merely a sectoral concern. It is the foundation upon which every other national aspiration stands. The integration of health into climate policy is a breakthrough, but it must be backed by measurable action, political will, ethical leadership, and inclusive governance. The Nigerian government, together with all relevant stakeholders, must uphold its accountability to the people. The stakes are too high, and the cost of inaction too severe, to settle for anything less. The future of Nigeria's health depends on what is done today. Climate change has issued its warning. The responsibility now lies with leaders, institutions, and every stakeholder to turn commitments into reality and to deliver a health system that is resilient, sustainable, transparent, and prepared for a climate-altered world.
The curtain on COP30 drew to a close last week with fanfare and hard questions. For Nigeria, the summit was no mere attendance check; it was a testing ground for ambition, partnerships, and credibility. Vice-President KashimShettimamounted the podium to reposition Nigeria not as a plea-box but as a proposer, calling for the recognition of Africa's ecosystems as global assets and unveiling plans to unlock finance for restoration and blue-carbon initiatives.
On the sidelines, Nigeria turned words into leverage. The country announced an ambition to mobilize up to US$3 billion annually through a new nationalcarbon market framework and related instruments, a headline figure intended to attract private capital, debt-for-nature swaps, and donor support. Equally tangible was a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with the state of California, USA, on clean technology, urban transport, and low-carbon fuels. It is instructive that the US, as a country, did not attend the conference, having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.
Nigeria's submission of NDC 3.0, an economy-wide, integrated plan, was another milestone that placed the country among early African actors reframing ambition into an implementable plan. However, a revised NDC is only the start- delivery depends on governance, finance, and project pipelines. Ambition without delivery risks being empty rhetoric.
On the global scale, COP30 endorsed a 'Belem package' that called for tripling adaptation finance by 2035 and confirmed cycles to operationalize and replenish the Loss and Damage Fund. This fund is especially critical for Nigeria, given its vulnerability to climate impacts.