Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH) won the maiden launch of recognition for the Best Sustainability Program during the 2017 Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Bell Awards for Excellence in Corporate Governance (Bell Awards) held last Nov. 9.
The honor for FPH was one of the five new categories that the PSE included in the Bell Awards tilt, which the PSE holds as away of giving recognition to listed companies and trading participants that show excellence in their corporate governance programs and practices.
According to the PSE, the Bell Award’s Best Sustainability Program category aims to recognize listed companies that best promote and enhance the quality of their sustainability programs to balance the interest of the environment, people and business.
Through this award, the PSE envisions to inspire all listed companies to improve the quality and communication of non-financial information between them and the investment community; and to level up their standard of corporate governance in engaging their shareholders and the investing public.
“As experts assessed, business cannot thrive in a failed society and a damaged planet. Business needs people to flourish so people can buy the products and services of business and both business and people will flourish if they work within the limits of the environment, ”FPH explained in its entry.
FPH is a holding company with interests in key industries such as energy, property development, construction, health care, and energy services. Among its subsidiaries is First Gen Corporation, the country’s leading clean and renewable energy company with 3,477 megawatts in total installed capacity, including 1,458 MW of pure renewable energy from First Gen’s own subsidiary Energy Development Corporation.
FPH likewise won the PSE award in the first year that it formalized its sustainability program.
Under the program, FPH prepared for 2016 a Sustainability Report that adhered to standards set by the Netherlands-based Global Reporting Initiative.
Its maiden Sustainability Report attested that FPH and its subsidiaries as a group offset or cancelled out 52 percent of their total carbon footprint in 2016.
No other local conglomerate has so far attained that level in offsetting their carbon footprint.
FPH earned the PSE recognition also a year after the holding company declared to commit all its businesses to low-carbon operations.
