Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation (CADEF) has extended its clean-air awareness campaign to businesses and organisations in Enugu, following engagements with 50 businesses in selected locations in Lagos, as stakeholders push for cleaner energy alternatives to reduce generator dependence and air pollution, RaveNewsOnline reports.
The initiative, known as the Neighbourhood Power Protocol (NPP), is a six-month campaign supported by Consumers International to examine how diesel generator emissions affect people living, working and shopping around commercial businesses and encourage the adoption of cleaner energy.
At the NPP Stakeholders’ Engagement Dialogue in Lagos, themed “Consumers for Clean Air,” stakeholders called for reliable electricity, affordable solar solutions and stronger air-quality monitoring to address pollution associated with generator use.
CADEF’s Executive Director, Prof. Chiso Ndukwe-Okafor, said unreliable electricity supply remained a major reason businesses depended on generators, exposing workers, customers and nearby residents to harmful emissions.
“The problem is not that businesses are using generators. The problem is that we don’t have reliable energy,” she said.
Ndukwe-Okafor said businesses could reduce their dependence on conventional generators by assessing their fuel and maintenance costs and comparing them with cleaner alternatives, including solar systems available through lease arrangements or monthly payments.
She also encouraged businesses and residents to pool resources to establish shared solar systems or mini-grids, arguing that collective solutions could make cleaner energy more accessible.
The campaign’s engagement with businesses and organisations in Enugu extends its consumer-awareness efforts beyond Lagos, where air-quality monitoring was conducted at two sites by the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency.
Presenting the Lagos findings, Ndukwe-Okafor said the Air Quality Index readings were 37 in Allen and 53 in Kudirat Abiola, while PM2.5 readings in Kudirat Abiola were about 72 per cent higher than in Allen.
She cautioned that the readings were not a comprehensive assessment of air quality in either neighbourhood, noting that results could vary with traffic, generator use, rainfall, construction activities, season and the time of measurement.
She said a full-year study using consistent instruments and methods across locations would provide a more reliable basis for comparing air-quality conditions.
Also speaking, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission’s Head of Quality Assurance and Development Unit, Akinwumi Ishola, urged consumers to seek information before purchasing generators, solar panels and batteries, and to report products or business practices that could pose health and safety risks.
He advised businesses to maintain their generators properly and position them to prevent exhaust fumes from affecting neighbouring homes and workplaces.
Environmental expert, Dr Olorunwa Marcus, who represented the President of the Environmental Health Services, Dr Cyril Akinyele, called for regular air-quality monitoring and measures to reduce pollution at its source.
Marcus identified vehicle emissions, generators, industrial activities, dust and waste burning as contributors to air pollution, stressing that reliable data was necessary to measure the problem and determine whether interventions were effective.
“We cannot work in the abstract. We need appropriate and empirical data,” he said.
The dialogue brought together regulators, businesses, consumers, community representatives, civil society organisations and energy stakeholders to discuss pollution, consumer health and practical clean-energy options. Participating businesses were also invited to make voluntary clean-energy commitments.
