Everybody is talking about the greening of industries – and for a good reason, since going green is not only good for the environment, something businesses have belatedly rightly made their concern; but is also, actually, good for any business’ bottom line. Enterprise Magazine’s Green Talk, a bimonthly gathering of CEOs and key decision makers on the greening efforts of various companies from different industries, aims to be the venue for discussion of issues on sustainability that companies can apply to better their performances, thus profitability. The only one of its kind in the Philippines.

 The New Corporate Quest: Greening the Environment

The first Green Talk discussed with CEOs and/or directors of various companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts their efforts in greening their processes that, inevitably, green the environment.

The following are select parts of the discussions during the first Green Talk on February 18, at ECHOstore Sustainable Lifestyle at the Serendra Piazza in Taguig City.

What existing green efforts does your company have that you are proud of? Maribel Poblacion Leysa (MPL), Asst. TQM Officer of Ricoh (Philippines) Inc.: Ricoh (Philippines) is multinational company (with) multi-function products, such as copiers, et cetera. Our company is well known as an environmentally friendly company – we are, in fact, the first in our (industry) to apply for a green label certification (with the Department of Environment and Natural resources, among others, in the Philippines), though we are already ISO 14001 (which deals with how a company manages the environment inside and immediate outside of its facilities), only recently, we launched totally green office solutions, (meaning) our products are environmentally friendly technologies. Manuel Sabando Peralta (MSP), President of Ricoh (Philippines) Inc.: The contribution of our industry to global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is approximately 2% of (the grand total). Included here, of course, are (emissions from) copiers or printers, and other communication printing devices. A lot of people do not know this situation, that’s why Ricoh continues developing environmental technology and products that will help reduce society’s environmental impact in day to day operations and processes – specifically, when we manufacture our products, environmental preservation is already being considered, so that our machines (are) most economical in terms of power consumption. Ricoh (products) consume very little electricity when compared with other machines because our copiers, for example, just require between 600 to 800 watts (of electricity) while other copiers need over a thousand watts. So even if you invest a little (more), everything you want is (already) there, as Ricoh is really designed to last long. Edgar B. Javeniar (EBJ), IT Manager at DUNHAM-BUSH International: We are an industrial company, into air conditioning, and our company’s focus is in providing ice thermal (technology). Not many are familiar with it, though many are getting to know the technology, with) most of our clients the likes of Ayala’s projects, including Trinoma, and Serendra in Taguig City. Chillers are parts of airconditioners (that are necessary for, say, malls), but with the ice thermal technology, (the ice tanks make ice during off hours, which are then used when the malls are in operation) – this way, cooling is then just done (with the blowing through the ice to release cooler air), so energy consumption is cut (while) cutting contribution to (harmful gas emissions). In the case of Trinoma, for example, instead of running three chillers, they just use two (on top of six ice tanks), and it cuts their energy use and carbon emission at the same time. Darwin Mariano (DM), Director for Public Affairs of Cemex: In our solid cement plant in Antipolo, which caters to the Luzon market, and the APO cement plant in Cebu, which caters to the Mindanao and the Visayas markets, we have a number of green initiatives. It is actually noteworthy to mention that Cemex is the only cement company in the Philippines with the eco label, meaning all our products have been awarded the Green Choice seal by (a) multi-party organization composed of the Department of Energy and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), among others. Basically, it is a seal (guaranteeing the) environmentally responsible services and products we have, pursuant to many of our environmental programs. We have been doing our part to green our industry. But we realized that we need our businesses to be sustainable internally first, (so we have, among others, an) energy efficiency program that involves use of alternative fuel that minimizes our dependence on traditional fuel sources – part of compliance with the regulations (for our eco label) is to show at least 10% reduction in green house gas emissions (GHG) per ton of output, and, in our case, we have demonstrated that. Also, last year, we are proud to share with everyone that we spent around P300 million for environmental protection and enhancement of our home communities, even if we were only (requested) by the government to spend around P3 million to P5 million – externally, we have a number of programs, (including) Adopt a Species, which really creates a frame work by which companies like us and individuals into species conservation to protect this country as a whole; and Adopt a School, (which) didn’t only make PR sense or community relationship building sense, since there was also an economic (benefit with tax exemptions from the effort). We are facing our number one priority of wanting to help (by protecting) the biodiversity particularly of the areas around our plants. Gerald Monasterio (GM), Operations Manager of The Enterprise Center: The Enterprise Center (was) awarded the most energy efficient building in the Philippines in 2008, (allowing us to) join the Asian Energy Awards (where) we got the second place after Singapore. Mainly, the (citation was given us because) we have several projects concerning energy conservation, such as the use of the waste air recovery to generate power, right now (reaching) around 13 kilowatts (of generated) power we use to power our machine rooms, et cetera; and (holding) events in TEC like the Eco Week, when we feature the best practices of the building, and, of course, we invite third parties to present their products and their services to our tenants to show to our tenants that we are concerned with our environment as well. There are (numerous other) projects that were implemented in 2007 and in 2008, (showing) that as far as The Enterprise Center is concerned, we’re really into green practices. Owen L. Cammayo (OLC), Lead for External Communications (Media and Analyst) and Marketing and Communications of IBM Philippines: At IBM, many of our processes have gone paperless. For example, our leave application, expense claims, procurement approval, and proposal approval processes are all electronically done. This saves tons of paper and storage space for the company. In our Business Resiliency Center, we have implemented "lights out" policy, where lights in the data center are turned off until someone has to come into the centre for maintenance. Considering that each bulb is 40W and there are hundreds of them illuminating our data center, this saves energy for the data center operations. Through our mobile office concept, HR policy and the use of technology, we enable our employees to work from anywhere at anytime. This helps to reduce commuting, which in turn, reduces pollution and fuel consumption. Another initiative we have undertaken is to consolidate our data centers from 220 to 12, and we are still in the process of consolidating 3,900 servers down to 30, which will reduce the energy footprint of those applications by some 80%. There are too many to highlight all the initiatives we have undertaken, but those are a few we IBMers have implemented, in addition to the numerous energy-saving and environmentally saving solutions we have provided to our customers, since the launch of our Project Big Green initiative started in 2007, and continuing on the years of environmental efforts, when as early as 1971, IBM established its corporate environmental policy in 1971. IBM (through Project Big Green) has also committed $1billion each year to “greening” IBM customers' infrastructures and IBM itself, an amount that no other vendor is able to match. What, for you, are the main issues concerning the greening of your operations? DM: Firstly, I guess the biggest challenge is energy efficiency. I heard it said that the cement makers are the biggest cooks of the planet – what we need to manufacture cement is to subject stones to very high temperature to produce materials that are eventually ground into cement, so cooking it at temperatures required to manufactures cement requires lot of energy. What we’ve done in Cemex and our operations all over the world, really, is to advance the technology of alternative fuels. In the Philippines, what we’re trying to explore now, what we been doing in the past is already utilizing materials like rice husks, which would otherwise just be thrown away as waste, as alternative energy source for our manufacturing processes. The other one is we want to be able to continue to develop sustainable practices. We develop a process wherein we (encourage the participation of the) communities where we are because, at the end of the day, it is a symbiotic relationship that exists (between them and us). What we found in Cemex is that it is more productive not just for the community but the company as well, when we engage them in our processes (as it) also helps us manage expectations. EBJ: We operate on people, so sustainability and training are the most important things when you talk about (making efforts) sustainable. Gener S. Peciller (GSP), Property Manager/Group Enercon Manager of The Enterprise Center: Some say that greening is really costly. But for TEC or in any other development company, if you start greening, there are some references, such as the US Green Building, which is available in the Internet, promoting the Leader in Energy Efficiency Design (LEED). So starting from the design stage, the conceptualization, up to the implementation, greening should already be there. A problem in the Philippines is (the absence of) incentives in doing green – in the US, they have tax incentives. And then there’s the lack of data for benchmarking – when coordinating with the Department of Energy (DOE), sometimes even they don’t have available data on (energy conservation efforts of) big companies, so we don’t have benchmarks to help us identify if what we’re doing is in the range of standards.