Such is an ambitious project considering that involves neutralizing all the carbons—another term for pollution—that ALI has contributed through its development and operation: A subdivision is not carved out of thin air. However, ALI is sticking to that target through three methods: plant more trees, use renewable energy and avoid using finite forest resource.
“We have been monitoring our emissions for the last 10 years, but because we are in expansion mode, our emission also [grew],” Anna Maria Gonzales, the company’s sustainability manager, told the BusinessMirror. “So we decided last year to do something about it.”
At the moment, ALI produces about 68,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to documents provided by the company. Such figure is expected to grow as ALI also plans to double its income and revenue by 2020.
“We can do many things like avoid [adding to emissions] but we can only avoid so much [and] shift to renewable energy; it takes time,” Gonzales said in an interview. “[But what] we have to start now is forest regeneration. So by 2022 there are more trees in the areas that we have identified that can help reduction of carbon [emission].”
Valuation
TO achieve such lofty goal, the company—whose main goal is to develop lands and make profit from this business—is allocating some 450 hectares of what it calls “carbon forests.”
ALI does not count trees for the effort but the number of hectares the company has allocated for the initiative.
“We have been tracking, among other environment, social, governance metrics our greenhouse-gas emissions throughout the various stages of our project-development process,” Gonzales said.
For now, the 450-hectare [forested areas] consist of five sites in different parts of the Philippines.
Three of the sites are within or adjacent to existing ALI development projects.
Forest sites in Lio and Sicogon are integrated into the estate’s masterplan as part of the project’s “nature trail areas.” The Alaminos site lies north of BellaVita subdivision, while the Kan-irag and Talomo sites are in the cities of Cebu and Davao.
ALI plans to spend some P42 million for the initiative.
The hectares of land ALI will not develop for now also have value. It did not, however, divulge the value of the land.
“It’s really for the environmental value that we want to establish. People don’t realize how important the environment is. They just put value when you destroy it,” Gonzales said. “For now, we just want to establish that. It’s worth disciplining yourself by not developing [the land].”
Carbon forest
TOGETHER with the Center for Conservation Innovations Inc., a study was conducted to determine the baseline carbon stock in these “carbon forest” sites. The study identified the best protection and enhancement approach through assisted natural regeneration and other methods to maximize the carbon-storage potential for each site.
Its so-called carbon-forest sites are expected to augment the total carbon-emission reduction of ALI by approximately 20 percent year on year. ALI claims its forest sites would help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a process called “carbon sequestration.”
“Although forests do release carbon dioxide from their natural processes, a healthy forest typically stores carbon more than it releases it,” Gonzales said.
Assisted natural regeneration initiatives are activities that support forest regrowth through protection, tending of diverse native species found on site and enhancement planting of other indigenous species, according to the company.
The company said it has partnered with community-based, non-governmental organizations like Pusod Inc., Soil and Water Conservation Foundation and Philippine Eagle Foundation, which specialize in reforestation, native tree nursery management and volunteer mobilization.
The company announced its plans to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions in its properties last year, through a combination of initiatives, which include passive cooling design, energy efficiency, renewable-energy sourcing and carbon offset mechanisms, such as forest regeneration and protection.
Trading
AYALA Land is the only Philippine company included in The Sustainability Yearbook 2017, the most comprehensive publication on corporate sustainability produced by Swiss international investment company RobecoSAM.
Multidisciplinary teams have been formed within the company to implement targeted eco-efficiency approaches and enhance greenhouse-gas accounting capacities. In order to substantially reduce controllable emissions, natural cooling and energy saving measures have long been integrated into the planning and design of Ayala Land’s developments nationwide, while emissions are continually reduced through retrofits, redevelopment and other interventions in operating properties, the company claimed.
The Philippines’s ranking in the Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index 2017 has improved one notch among countries most vulnerable to climate change. However, the country is still ranked fifth based on the impact of extreme weather events over the past 20 years.
Greenhouse-gas emissions from human activities have been linked to climate-change indicators and the mitigation of such emissions has been a global undertaking since the 2016 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“The company’s four focus areas of site resilience, pedestrian mobility and transit connectivity, resource-efficiency and local economic development allow it to provide the discipline and direction needed to create long-term value for all its stakeholders, the economy and the environment,” the company said.
ALI, however, has no plans yet to enter into carbon trading, or selling its carbon surplus.
“Here is a company that is not destroying it [the environment] because there’s a value. And the new currency is carbon, [specifically,] stored carbon. So it’s like an investment. And then later let’s talk about trading when we already have a surplus,” Gonzales said. “But the short answer [on the question of the possibility of joining carbon trading], the regulatory environment isn’t there yet.”