BY now, most of the publicly listed companies have been accustomed to doing and submitting to the government their sustainability reports. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said listed firms were in “peak compliance” for the submission of the separate report on sustainability—as much as 98 percent compliant for the 2019 and 2020 financial reporting years that the agency monitored so far.
Reporting compliance is one, but the content is another.
Rachel Gumtang-Remalante, director of the agency’s corporate governance and finance department, said they are not stopping at compliance alone but are encouraging firms to do better disclosures on their sustainability efforts.
“So there are other frameworks out there that are being used, in order for these companies to have more flexibility on how they will be providing their sustainability reporting initiatives. In the end, of course, we have not stopped providing workshops and trainings,” Remalante said.
“And of course, we always push for more discussions on sustainability. The SDGs are the sustainable development tools [that we can use],” she said.
The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals set by the United Nations, designed to be a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.
The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by 2030.
Gustavo Gonzalez, resident coordinator of the UN in the Philippines, said that according to the most recent report of the UN in the Asia Pacific, the region is not on track to achieve any of the 17 SDGs.
He said that 1.7 billion people in the world living in 107 economies were exposed to at least one of the three—rising food prices, rising energy prices and tightening financial conditions.
“And as we know the Philippine is also experiencing such. For the UN in the Philippines, we look at these global regional and country challenges to the SDGs from the lens of our core agenda, which is to leave no one behind. And in practical terms, this means reducing inequalities in all its form,” Gonzalez said in his presentation at a webinar organized by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines.
Since the pandemic, many of the conglomerates have been busy championing their sustainability efforts, such as using renewable energy in shopping malls, or shunning coal to produce power.
Lopez group
It was the Lopez group in May 2016 that started it all.
Federico R. Lopez, chairman and CEO of First Philippine Holdings Corp., said the Lopez group would never build, develop or invest in any coal-fired power plant.
It took half a decade, or for the SEC’s Sustainability Reporting requirement, for others to follow suit.
Last year, ACEN Corp., the energy unit of Ayala Corp., said it will transition the company’s generation portfolio to full renewable energy by 2025, while spinning off its coal-fired power plants.
Even banks have joined in the fray against coal. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., the Yuchengco-led lender, said it is set to zero out its remaining existing exposure on coal-fired power plants by 2031.
The bank said the move is consistent with its earlier announcement to cease funding of new coal power plants.
“As part of RCBC’s commitment to the environment and to the world we all live in, we are phasing out lending to coal-fired power plants by 2031,” RCBC president and CEO Eugene S. Acevedo said.
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock with a high amount of carbon and hydrocarbons, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Coal is classified as a nonrenewable energy source because it takes millions of years to form. Coal contains the energy stored by plants that lived hundreds of millions of years ago in swampy forests.
Coal is the main business for the likes of DMCI Holdings Inc., which owns Semirara Mining and Power Corp., and for Aboitiz Power Corp. Both of these firms swore that their operations were fully compliant with regulations and technologies are being used to minimize its effects on the environment.
Phasing out coal operations is close to impossible for these firms, but Aboitiz Power, where more than half of the revenues of the Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. comes from, said it is committed to increasing to 50 percent its renewable energy ratio as against non-renewable power plants.
Maria Luisa Inofre, chief people officer of Aboitiz Power, said they are aware of the challenges of decarbonizing the energy systems, especially in a developing country such as the Philippines.
“We’ve been doing measures to look at this energy transition through the lens of a renewable energy at all costs, at full speed, in all contexts and narrative. We want to take a careful, well-calculated and long-term approach towards decarbonization,” Inofre said.
“We need to explore and utilize all forms of energy to sustain the Philippine way of life. We will continue supporting this transition with our diversified buildup assets, and existing energy capacities. And we are set to triple our renewable energy portfolio and develop new complementary solutions to help the country decarbonize more efficiently but that will take time; then we’re targeting 2030 for a 50/50 because we understand we cannot move towards 100 percent renewable energy supply in the country,” she said.
But from the view of the UN, the clock is ticking, especially in the case of the SDG deadline.
“The Global Climate Risk Index ranks the Philippines [as one of the] countries affected by climate-induced hazard. The country as a whole is already highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change, including sea levels rise, increased frequency of extreme weather events, raising temperatures and extreme rainfall,” UN’s Gonzalez said.
He said that attaining the SDGs cannot afford a business-as-usual approach.
“So we need to collectively act with urgency and greater ambition. We know that the ongoing challenges are exceeding the response capacity of any single player. So this is the time of coalition alliances,” he said.
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