First Balfour, vendors address climate change

Lopez-led engineering and construction subsidiary First Balfour Inc., and its vendors have agreed to explore measures they can adopt and integrate into their respective business operations as their way of supporting the campaign to help reverse adverse climate change.

The vendors, who belong to First Balfour’s supply chain, bared this plan during a face-to-face First Balfour vendors’ forum early this month.

During the gathering, First Balfour Strategic Business Head Vicente de Lima 2nd highlighted the importance of reaching out to its vendors and other stakeholders as the company’s way of supporting the new Lopez Group-wide mission of forging collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future.

Lima noted that “collaboration with the vendors and subcontractors, government, communities, and even with competitors is most important” in dealing with a common threat like climate change.

Discussions at the gathering also focused on the contribution of the construction sector to the issue of climate change.

“Globally, the construction industry is one of the largest consumers of raw materials, and the processing of these materials for use in construction leads to embodied carbon in these materials in large amounts,” said Agnes de Jesus, one of the speakers at the forum who is the chief sustainability officer of First Philippine Holdings (FPH), the Lopez-led parent firm of First Balfour.

As part of its pledge to fight climate change, First Balfour agreed to join a Philippine initiative, called “Ako Ang Bukas Movement” (AAB), which the pro-environment and non-government organization Green Convergence convened in an effort to help the country achieve net-zero carbon emissions by year 2050.

The multi-sectoral AAB has developed a calculator that the Climate Change Commission earlier evaluated and enhanced for quantifying the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) an individual or an organization creates. Studies have identified GHGs, like carbon dioxide, as major contributors to climate change.

First Balfour will use the AAB calculator to estimate the company’s greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain. At the forum, AAB shared this calculator with First Balfour’s vendors to help them quantify their own carbon emissions.

Angelina Galang, Green Convergence convenor, explained the significance of the steps that First Balfour and its partners are taking. “Before we can act on the climate crisis, we must know the greenhouse gas footprint we generate,” she said.

During the same forum, the implications of adverse climate change to the construction sector and the business case for the industry to support decarbonization strategies were also explained.

The implications, according to de Jesus, included the risk of business disruptions to the construction projects caused by floods and other calamities associated with climate change, as well as exposure to potential regulations that may be issued to curb the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis.

Reference: https://www.manilatimes.net/2022/12/22/business/top-business/first-balfour-vendors-address-climate-change/1871337