Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) said its businesses collectively saved some 33.86 billion liters of water from 2017 to 2022, equivalent to the annual consumption of over 94,000 households, or the monthly use of over 1.129 million families.
The water savings, which it reported on World Water Day, represent a 21 percent reduction in the use of water across the larger conglomerate. This includes Petron Corp., San Miguel Global Power, San Miguel Foods, San Miguel Brewery Inc., Ginebra San Miguel Inc., San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corp., Northern Cement, SMC Infrastructure and San Miguel Properties Inc.
“Water issues have always been a priority for San Miguel, especially since much of our operations and all our communities, depend on access to water. This is why we have not let up on our efforts to continuously increase water savings at our facilities across the whole San Miguel Group,” San Miguel President and CEO Ramon S. Ang said.
Petron topped the list with the most water savings, accounting for over 17 billion liters saved throughout the six-year period, due largely to its use of water desalination technology, which enables the safe and sustainable use of seawater for cooling facilities at its state-of-the-art refinery in Limay, Bataan. For 2022, Petron was also the top performer, saving 2.08 billion liters of water, followed by San Miguel Global Power at 1.5 billion liters. Ginebra and San Miguel Packaging came in third and fourth with 1.1 billion liters and 1.03 billion liters, respectively.
Ang said that through its established Water Council, made up of water and technical experts across its different businesses, programs and innovations in support of water recycling and reuse have now become commonplace at all its installations.
For example, San Miguel’s newer plants are constructed with built-in rainwater harvesting facilities. Older facilities meanwhile invest to put up rainwater catchment and collection systems.
For 2022, San Miguel said it collected and used some 473.86 million liters of rainwater, a significant jump from 114.36 liters saved in 2021.
The use of recycled water for various processes across the different SMC businesses was significantly higher, topping out at 1.46 billion liters in 2022 from 1.08 billion liters in 2021.
Seawater desalination continued to account for majority of the water reduction, at 2.88 billion liters in 2022.