Sustainability Graduate Spotlight - Chisom Ekomaru
To inspire prospective students who are interested in working within the area of sustainability, the TU Dublin Sustainability Office, together with the Alumni Office, have developed a new Sustainability Graduate Spotlight series. The monthly showcase aims to celebrate TU Dublin and former DIT graduates who are leading on and advancing the sustainability agenda as part of their work within industry or within the community.
This month, we are focusing on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, shining a spotlight on TU Dublin graduate Chisom Ekomaru. In 2018, after four years of study, Chisom achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in TU835 Planning & Environmental Management and in 2019 completed a Master of Science degree in TU205 Sustainable Development, both of which were delivered by the School of Architecture, Building and Environment.
Chisom Ekomaru
Chisom is a sustainability professional with six years of corporate experience in the waste and manufacturing sector. She has a background in environmental management and sustainable development with an interest in circular economy implementation through industrial symbiosis, having completed her master’s dissertation on facilitating the same in Ireland.
Currently working as Group Sustainability Manager for Ecocem, Europe’s leading low carbon cement technology business, Chisom coordinates the implementation of the group's sustainability strategy and leads on Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) reporting. Chisom is also an affiliate member of Engineers Ireland and a member of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. She is passionate about driving small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sustainability through fostering circular economy partnerships.
Educational Experience
We caught up with Chisom earlier this month to learn more about what influenced her choice of study. Growing up in Nigeria, Chisom described how she was informally introduced to the practices of circular economy, where reuse and repurposing were part of everyday life in a developing country. She added that “despite being light-years ahead of the West when it comes to reuse and repurposing, in Nigeria, environmental degradation and poverty were obvious”. This piqued Chisom’s interest in sustainable resource management and was the driving force behind her choice of career. Chisom has since completed her studies and progressed in her career and her interest in resource management including energy, water, and waste remains as keen as ever.
Applying new Skills and Knowledge
When asked about what key skills or learnings she obtained from both her degrees, Chisom highlighted a range of valuable skills in communication, data analysis, and research, and the opportunity to develop new knowledge in environmental legislation and project management – both of which support her work in her current role.
In her current role Chisom works with all the teams across the business on a wide range of projects, and she describes her day-to-day as being quite varied, which she says, “keeps things exciting and it means I am constantly learning new skills and gaining new industry information and insights”.
One example of a typical project is the work Chisom is doing with Ecocem’s European logistics team, on their transition to renewable fuel, at their Dublin plant as part of their Sustainable Action Plan – a project that has seen all plant and non-road mobile machinery switching from diesel to Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO).
Chisom tells us about another exciting project in which she is involved that can be instrumental in decarbonising the cement industry, responsible for almost 8% of global CO2 emissions. Ecocem’s ACT, launched in 2022 is the next generation low carbon cement technology that can deliver a globally scalable 70% reduction in the cement industry’s carbon footprint as early as 2035 with no significant increase in production costs, reduced energy and water use, and minimal change to manufacturing processes.
Chisom is also excited about the range of community engagement projects that her company has in the pipeline. She tells us that each year, Ecocem asks their people to submit environmental or social initiatives within the community to which they think they could add value. The OpenHive Honey beehive programme is one such initiative. Since 2022, up to 50,000 native Irish bees have thrived in Ecocem's first beehive, located in Co. Wicklow. In addition to producing honey that their local teams enjoy, the beehive also contributes to the EU-wide research project COLOSS through the Irish honeybee health surveillance programme.
#TUDublinSustainability
The concept of sustainability can mean many different things to different people, and understanding what Sustainability at TU Dublin means our people and our network is a great starting point as we work to establish TU Dublin as one of the most sustainable universities in the world. When we asked what #TUDublinSustainability means to her, Chisom replied:
To me, #TUDublinSustainability means developing the skills to enable a just, holistic, innovative, and interdisciplinary approach to environmental, social, and economic issues and contribute to a resilient community where man and nature coexist and thrive.