The Energy Development Corporation has affirmed its commitment to sustainable energy through geothermal power in Negros Oriental and other provinces in the Visayas.
Corporate Social Responsibility Manager Reinero S. Medrano made the pledge in a talk before some 150 members of the global environmental network 350.org ast Sept. 24 at the Negros Oriental Convention Center.
Medrano presented EDC’s Community Partnerships program for its host communities as well as its BINHI greening legacy program in areas where it operates.
Medrano discussed with the 350.org members how geothermal energy and their sustainability program can help the Philippines move towards a green economy.
“EDC believes that sustainability could only be achieved if the company gives equal attention to environmental and social prosperity as it profits,” he said.
BINHI is EDC’s landmark 10-year reforestation program that focuses on vanishing premium indigenous tree species. It has allowed us to implement our own Payments for Environmental Services (PES) on a broader scale through the environment-related jobs that we generated for our host communities, Medrano said.
In 2010, EDC was able to plant over 772,591 BINHI trees within a total combined area of 1,071 hectares across its project sites, including Southern and Northern Negros. Through BINHI, the company’s carbon sequestration is now estimated at 137,000 tons per year.
Medrano said their company expects to increase its carbon sequestration as they plant more trees, especially now that BINHI is already a strategic program under the government’s National Greening Program (NGP).
He said EDC is the first private partner of the government in the NGP in EDC’s various sites in the country and which gives income for EDC’s host communities.
For working on the BINHI project EDC’s host communities earned almost Php27 million apart from the other benefits that they get from the company’s CSR investments that also focus on their wellness, education and livelihood.
“This is EDC’s contribution to the greening of our economy,” said Medrano. Under the partnership agreement, the DENR and EDC will establish and maintain a seed bank and an arboretum of threatened species; develop a documentation mechanism or databank through an interactive website, tree certification, plantation registry and maps; make available environmental and watershed management data that can be vital to the development of policies and guidelines for reforestation; and spearhead the information education and communication campaign with DENR to raise awareness on the two projects. (PR)
