Sustainability on my Mind

It looks like Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) was on everyone’s mind at the two events I was part of recently: the Women’s Business Council Philippines, Inc.’s  “Climate Change for Women, by Women,” and the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP)’s 14^th International Innovation Summit 2022, entitled “The Big PH IT-BPM LEAP.”

The WomenBizPH hybrid learning event tackled the actions needed to help women and children who are most vulnerable to environmental disasters because of already existing inequalities, and shared best practices on sustainability currently being done by corporations.

Climate related loss and damage in the Philippines are enormous, easily amounting to more than P506B in ten years and displacing more than 5.7M people because of destructive typhoons, according to the WWF Philippines Executive Director Catherine “Trin” Custodio.  The Climate crisis is real, and not gender neutral as 80% of those displaced are women, whose roles make them more susceptible to the negative economic and health impacts that it brings. However, because women are innately nurturing and caring, with a wealth of practical knowledge and intuition that comes from the gut, women have the power and the interest to do something to save Mother Earth for their families.

Seen from a gender lens, SM Investment Corporation’s VP for Sustainability Koleen Davila-Palaganas shared their best practices, which include empowering women entrepreneurs to be sustainable in their supply chain, developing women in different leadership spaces, investing in sustainable and quality education and healthcare, ensuring sustainable food supply and green options for sustainable living, providing access to sustainable finance, and creating sustainable cities.

I love Trin’s call for corporations to incorporate sustainability in business operations as our corporate sponsors are doing, reframe CSR to mean corporate sustainability response, instead of merely corporate social responsibility, and to support each other in doing so.

Meanwhile, the 14^th IBPAP IIS opened with a powerful keynote, entitled “ESG: From Big Words to Bigger Actions” by Ayala Corporation’s Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, or JAZA as he is fondly called.  JAZA shared Ayala Corporation’s two-pronged approach to sustainability, combining ESG, which is inward looking, and CSV, which is outward looking.

Noting that ESG is essentially keeping the house in order while understanding which ESG factors are important to stakeholders, JAZA shared that ESG allows Ayala to hold itself accountable on the group’s impact.  By undertaking a Materiality Assessment Process, Ayala has identified their focus areas. For Environment, it is climate change, biodiversity, resource efficiency, and waste management. For Social, it is workplace experience and the future of work, as well as customer experience and protection.  For Governance, Ayala’s focus is equitable business practices.

While ESG allows Ayala to hold itself accountable for its impact, Creating Shared Value (CSV) allows the group to proactively address societal challenges by bringing innovative ideas to scale through financially viable businesses that contribute to society.  Ayala uses the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as its framework for aligning operations and initiatives, zeroing in on 11 SDGs to create a Sustainability Blueprint. This blueprint, which focuses on access and inclusivity, productivity and competitiveness, and responsible growth and innovation, guides Ayala’s decision-making on investments and projects to ensure a net positive gain for stakeholders and the environment.

JAZA’s talk was followed by White and Case Global Director of Strategy, Meghann Kelley, who observed that her training in business school emphasized optimizing profits, but today, the focus has transformed into optimizing shareholder value, combining profits with social and environmental impact.  Meghann tackled the topic of ESG and Sustainability using two lenses: how White and Case run their firm, and how they help clients in their sustainability journey.

Internally, White and Case is a signatory to the UN Global Compact, has planted over 6,000 trees in several countries, established a firm-wide environmental management system, and has been recognized for its commitment to LGBTQ workplace equality, among other awards.  As a global firm, White and Case helps clients address concerns regarding the environment, business and human rights, climate change, sustainable finance, energy transition and as a public company advisory.

Both JAZA and Meghann acknowledged that sustainability is no longer just an issue of compliance but serves as a lever for a company’s competitiveness and performance. Sustainability is a critical driver of growth and a measure of success of a company’s impact.

Simply put, we all must walk the talk when it comes to sustainability.  Both individually and collectively, we can commit, act, and advocate for a nature-positive, climate-resilient, inclusive economy for Mother Earth.  After all, as one speaker said, we only have one earth to live in, and one life to live, so let’s make it worthwhile.