4 years in the past, the Philippines first submitted to the United Nations its nationally decided contribution (NDC) to the Paris local weather accord, aiming to curb emissions by 75 per cent.
Like different UN member states, the Southeast Asian nation is because of unveil new commitments on the right way to obtain this by early this 12 months.
With a brand new invoice handed final 12 months which seeks to precisely measure the nation’s pure sources, together with the approval of worldwide carbon credit score commerce guidelines at COP29, nature-based options might transfer the needle on local weather motion in 2025.
And it’s about time, as nature is intertwined to enterprise, mentioned Agnes de Jesus, chief sustainability officer of First Philippine Holdings Corp., whose subsidiaries embrace clear and renewable power, and is among the few Filipino corporations that has adopted nature-related reporting.
De Jesus instructed Eco-Enterprise: “Nature offers all entities, not solely enterprise, environmental companies which are important to its operations and existence – from uncooked supplies like water, meals, and wooden, plus bodily safety from local weather dangers like landslides, floods, and erosion. So it’s logical to work on these to guard the enterprise and property with or and not using a [government] mandate.”
Eco-Enterprise examines the sustainability traits that Philippine companies want to concentrate to assist the nation work in direction of its decarbonsation targets.
1. Corporations to start out accounting for nature
A brand new regulation which would require the federal government to report its financial contribution of pure sources has thrust nature reporting into the highlight.
Generally known as the Philippine Ecosystem and Pure Capital Accounting System, or PENCAS, the invoice goes past reporting to mandate that the archipelago begins taking a look at measuring the depletion, degradation, and restoration of nature. De Jesus mentioned environmental influence assessments then have to be aligned with findings from pure capital accounting, to ensure that firms to obtain any.
“PENCAS can higher information corporates on the systematic reporting of their environmental impacts, and (as they take) measures for the safety or restoration of nature inside their challenge worksites,” she mentioned.
For now, nature reporting is not but obligatory within the Philippines, although authorities companies are encouraging corporates to start out doing so In 2023, at a discussion board hosted by the Securities Trade Fee, firms have been suggested to start out reviewing the Taskforce on Nature-related Monetary Disclosures (TFND) customary as a result of buyers have been in search of TNFD alignment.
The Nationwide Financial and Growth Authority (NEDA) can be main efforts to get firms and civil society organisations to submit Sustainable Growth Targets (SDGs)-aligned commitments on local weather motion, conservation of oceans and forests. These organisations are anticipated to be among the many first to be requested to valuate their pure capital contributions, so as to add to nationwide statistical data.
2. Blue carbon economic system to take off
The operationalisation of Article 6 on the COP29 local weather summit in Baku, Azerbaijan final November is more likely to have ripple results within the Philippines’ carbon markets area. Article 6.4, a piece underneath the Paris Settlement which lays out the muse for international locations to commerce carbon credit, was finalised amid questions on integrity and transparency guidelines.
In the course of the convention, the Philippines delegation introduced a roadmap on the way it was going to faucet carbon credit to unlock financing, corresponding to by means of carbon dioxide captured by the oceans.
Earlier than COP29, the Philippines had signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore, signalling that the 2 international locations will work in direction of a legally binding implementation settlement for cross-border carbon credit score buying and selling. The federal government has additionally been working with the World Financial Discussion board’s Blue Carbon Motion Partnership to discover conservation initiatives.
Blue carbon offsets can doubtlessly contribute to the nation’s mitigation and adaptation targets by means of carbon sequestration, mentioned Edgardo Tongson, WWF Philippines’ sustainable finance lead.
The nation is investing thousands and thousands in coastal restoration to assist shield communities and infrastructure towards future storms, mentioned Tongson, though it’ll additionally should sort out the accompanying dangers of those initiatives corresponding to excessive preliminary prices, in addition to insufficient measurability and verifiability of the challenge advantages.
3. Will the inexperienced power transition create jobs?
The Philippines stands to achieve a most of 106,952 megawatts (MW) in renewable power capability addition and this might doubtlessly create as much as 1.18 million jobs, in line with the Division of Vitality (DOE).
Below the clear power state of affairs, 106,952 MW of renewable power capability addition is anticipated by 2050. About 1.18 million jobs could possibly be generated in the identical interval. Supply: DOE
Michael Sinocruz, director of DOE’s power and planning bureau mentioned that the Philippines continues to rely closely on fossil fuels and stays a worldwide mining hotspot, and would require a simply power transition roadmap to be applied.
“This roadmap is an important element for the nation’s sustainable improvement and in supporting its imaginative and prescient to attain a low-carbon power future. Renewable power applied sciences offering clear power will generate a major variety of inexperienced jobs for the Philippines,” Sinocruz instructed Eco-Enterprise.
Civil society organisations have additionally been calling on nationwide legislators to go a Simply Vitality Transition Invoice, which was drafted and filed in 2022. The invoice consists of next-steps on what the nation must do to maneuver from a fossil fuels-based consumption economic system to rely extra on clear power sources, however has been pending with no updates on when it’ll go.
4. Home EV battery plant to assist curb provide chain points
President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr (proper) is introduced with a miniature reproduction of the Tesla Cybertruck on the launch of the EV large’s flagship Philippine retailer in Bonifacio World Metropolis, Taguig. Picture: Presidential Communications Workplace
The launch of the first manufacturing unit for electrical car (EV) batteries within the Philippines final 12 months signalled how the mode of transport is successful favour in a rustic that is among the most pollution-choked in Southeast Asia. The Philippines’ transport sector is the nation’s fourth most pollutive trade, after the power, agriculture and waste sectors.
In January this 12 months, American multinational EV maker Tesla opened its flagship Philippine retailer in Bonifacio World Metropolis, Taguig. On the launch, Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. referred to as on Tesla govts to contemplate internet hosting its battery manufacturing and meeting amenities within the archipelago too. These new developments come on the heels of a 10 per cent bump in EV and hybrid car purchases within the nation.
For now, the Philippines nonetheless imports its batteries predominantly from Vietnam and Indonesia which have provide chains which are affected by transparency points, in addition to allegations of labour abuses, environmental crime and encroachment on Indigenous lands.
The native sector’s efforts to localise EV components manufacturing might assist curb the Philippines’ reliance on EV battery producers and provide chains answerable for such exploitation.
Though the Philippines sits on 4.5 per cent of the world’s untapped nickel reserves and is a number one producer of power transition minerals – together with cobalt and copper – the nation nonetheless exports almost 95 per cent of its uncommon earth ores to China because the native trade lacks the capability to fabricate EV batteries right here.
The present administration has rolled out a variety of measures to propel the expansion of the EV trade within the nation – together with eradicating excise taxes on battery electrical autos underneath the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, or TRAIN Act in addition to duty-free imports of charging stations and precedence registration for EV house owners, amongst different incentives underneath the Electrical Automobile Trade Growth Act, or EVIDA.
5. A concentrate on driving momentum for EPR regardless of stalled international plastics deal
Casual waste employees experience a pedicab to move the baggage of recyclables they’ve recovered from a neighbourhood in Bacolod Metropolis within the nation’s Western Visayas area. Picture: Brian Evans, CC BY-SA 3.0, through Flickr.
2025 marks the Philippines’ third 12 months of implementing the Prolonged Producer Accountability (EPR) Act. The Division of Atmosphere and Pure Sources (DENR) earlier reported that enormous producers diverted some 124,986 tonnes of plastic from landfills in 2023 – efficiently fulfilling the EPR Act’s first-year purpose of recovering 20 per cent of the nation’s plastic footprint.
This was achieved whilst international locations did not strike a worldwide deal to sort out international plastic air pollution final month in South Korea, after a small group of oil producers held out towards the vast majority of negotiating states pushing for an formidable treaty that restricted plastic manufacturing.
The fifth and remaining scheduled session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) assembly to ink the World Plastics Treaty in Busan has been adjourned, after a gathering final December ended and not using a treaty to curb international plastic air pollution. A 2024 survey discovered that 9 out of 10 Filipinos are in favour of a worldwide treaty to ban single-use plastic.
The Philippines’ EPR Act stipulates that enterprises have to fulfill a December 2025 deadline to get well at the least 50 per cent of their plastic footprint. By 2028, this mandated plastic restoration price must hit 80 per cent.
The industries should sort out persisting challenges corresponding to insufficient recycling infrastructure, inadequate waste segregation and an overreliance on plastic sachets throughout Philippines’ cities. Filipino customers generate sufficient sachets yearly to bury Metropolitan Manila underneath a foot of plastic; recycling charges stay low with solely 9 per cent of annual plastic waste produced. There are unresolved debates corresponding to whether or not waste-to-energy applied sciences must be deployed, with some highlighting the potential adverse penalties that these strategies would possibly create, corresponding to air air pollution.
6. Tug-and-pull on LNG as ‘transition gas’
Aerial shot of San Miguel Company’s ongoing liquified pure fuel (LNG) initiatives alongside the Verde Island Passage in Batangas, Philippines. Picture: Basilio Sepe
President Marcos signed the Philippine Pure Fuel Trade Growth Act into regulation in the beginning of the 12 months. His administration is searching for to place the nation as Asia Pacific’s key hub for liquefied pure fuel (LNG) commerce, and desires to incentivise investments within the trade. Marcos has been explicitly touting LNG as a “transition gas” important to the Philippines’ power safety and shift to renewables.
Marcos greenlit the measure lower than a month after the Philippine Competitors Fee authorized an enormous 184.89-billion-pesos (US$3.3 billion) three way partnership led by three of the nation’s richest energy tycoons – Ramon Ang, Manuel V Pangilinan and Sabin Aboitiz – to handle what might turn out to be the Philippines’ “most expansive” built-in LNG facility in Luzon’s Batangas province.
Environmental advocates – together with Greenpeace campaigner Jefferson Chua – have criticised the regulation as a step backwards for the nation’s local weather and decarbonisation targets.
“Allow us to name a spade a spade. ‘Pure’ fuel is a dangerous fossil gas that contributes to the local weather disaster. To say in any other case is an act of greenwashing and disinformation,” mentioned Chua.
A 2024 examine by Cornell College discovered that the greenhouse fuel footprint of LNG as a gas supply could possibly be as a lot as 33 per cent better than that of coal when processing and delivery are taken under consideration.
Gerry Arances of the Energy for Individuals Coalition slammed Marcos for reneging on his promise to decrease electrical energy prices and promote renewable power.
“With the regulation giving advantages to fuel equal to renewable power, it units again investments in clear sources, delaying the transition to a completely sustainable grid for the Philippines,” mentioned Arances. “Fuel is among the most costly sources of electrical energy. This invoice ensures continued dependence on costly [power].”
The archipelago goals to lift the share of renewables within the nation’s power combine to 35 per cent by 2030 and to 50 per cent by 2040, in line with the Philippine Vitality Plan.
With a lot of the Philippines’ LNG growth concentrated in coastal Batangas province, the marine biodiversity hotspot Verde Island Passage can be underneath risk. The hall would possibly see the event of greater than a dozen fossil fuel vegetation and as much as seven LNG import terminals within the subsequent few years.
“The president’s time period coincides with probably the most essential years for local weather motion. His actions will decide the way forward for one of the susceptible nations to local weather disasters,” Greenpeace’s Chua mentioned.
This story is a part of Eco-Enterprise’ Asia Outlook 2025 collection, which tracks the important thing traits and developments throughout the area within the new 12 months.
