‘We will do what we can at NAC to contribute to better numbers for the Philippines, and we look forward to collaborating with everyone else in their own respective organizations – in the private as well as the public sector – doing this same work!’
AFTER almost six decades of life, part of me feels that I am back in school, needing to master, to the best of my ability, a new area of knowledge that I never imagined I would have to be studying ever in my lifetime, which has been focused mainly on politics and law, in that order.
But a new corporate assignment has thrust me into the world of sustainability, and for at least two reasons I find myself working double-time to understand what this new focus of attention is (whether from the global, national, or corporate level), where the Philippines is, where our company is, and where we want our world, our country, and our company to be in a set number of years.
A few days ago, I stumbled upon a very informative publication called the Environmental Performance Index 2022. It is the result of work by experts from the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, as well as the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia university. The index provides “a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world,” as the publication itself states, ranking 180 countries based on 40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories in three policy objectives. The policy objectives are Climate, Environmental Health, and Ecosystem Vitality, and the issue categories are 1) Climate Change Mitigation: 2) Air Quality; 3) Water Management; 4) Water & Sanitation; 5) Heavy Metals; 6) Biodiversity and Habitat; 7) Ecosystem Services; 8) Fisheries; 9) Agriculture; 100 Acid Rain and 11) Water resources.
“Overall EPI rankings indicate which countries are best addressing the environmental challenges that every nation faces,” the introduction to the 2022 Index explains. “The EPI offers a powerful policy tool in support of efforts to meet the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and to move society toward a sustainable future.”
Before I share how the Philippines scored, I think it’s worth sharing a few other snippets from the report:
“High scoring countries exhibit longstanding and continuing investments in policies that protect environmental health, preserve biodiversity and habitat, conserve natural resources, and decouple greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth. Denmark tops the 2022 rankings…
“…based on the latest scientific insights and environmental data, India ranks at the bottom of all countries in the 2022 EPI with low scores across a range of critical issues. Deteriorating air quality and rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions pose especially urgent challenges. Many bottom-trier countries face war and other sources of unrest as well as a lack of financial resources to invest in environmental infrastructure.
“EPI projections indicate that just four countries – China, India, the United States and Russia – will account for over 50% of residual global greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 if current trends hold. A total of 24 countries will be responsible for nearly 80% of 2050 emissions unless decision-makers strengthen climate policies and emissions trajectories change.”
So where does the Philippines stand in the index of 180 countries?
Overall, the 2022 EPI ranks the Philippines at 158 with a score of 28.9 (Denmark scores 77.9 and India 18.9), and we rank ahead of fellow Asean nations Indonesia (No. 164, 28.2), Vietnam (No. 178, 20.1) and Myanmar (No. 179, 19.4). The six other Asean countries ahead of us are Cambodia (No. 154, 30.1), Laos (No. 149, 40.7), Malaysia (No. 130, 35.0), Thailand (No. 108, 38.1), Brunei Darussalam (No. 71, 45.7) and Singapore, the highest ranked Asean country at No. 44 with a score of 50.9 (in a tie with Namibia).
For each issue category, here is how the Philippines ranks: in Climate Change Mitigation we ranked No. 175 with a score of 16.9, eighth in Asean and better only than Laos and Vietnam.
For Air Quality, we are ranked No. 132 with a score of 25.9, seventh in Asean and better only than Laos, Indonesia, and Myanmar.
For Sanitation and Drinking Water, we ranked 110th with a score of 39, sixth in Asean ahead of Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and Laos.
For Heavy Metals, we are ranked 91st with a score of 47.4, fifth in Asean ahead of Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia.
We are ranked 116th in Waste Management with a score of 23.4, 7th in Asean ahead of Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
For Biodiversity and Habitat, we ranked 100th worldwide with a score of 54.2, fourth in Asean ahead of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and Myanmar.
We ranked 89th globally in Ecosystems services with a score of 26.7 and are No. 1 in Asean.
Our best ranking globally is in Fisheries where we are 21st worldwide with a score of 34.8, but second only in Asean to Singapore.
For Acid Rain we are ranked 161st with a score of 34.8, sixth in Asean ahead of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
For Agriculture, we ranked 113th globally with a score of 29.6 and eighth in Asean ahead of Singapore and Brunei.
Finally, for Water Resources we are ranked 126th globally (tied with North Macedonia with a score of 0.8) and fifth in Asean ahead of Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, and Myanmar.
Clearly, as a country, we have much to do and need to pay more attention to all of these indicators than we have been doing in the last few years. I am challenged, but energized, working with Edwin Nerva, Paolo Earvin Alonzo, Brenda Lhyn Aquino and Nicole Sungalon-islanan — colleagues who are part of Nickel Asia’s Office of the Chief Sustainability Officer who have taken sustainability and ESG to heart. As a team we are doing our best to achieve a number of objectives all at the same time: establish the baselines for Nickel Asia and all its subsidiaries, explaining ESG and Sustainability to the whole organization and, most important, giving our corporate leaders as accurate as possible a series of scenarios of targets which we as a responsible corporate citizen can shoot for. Gratefully, the NAC senior leadership has proven itself focused on this responsibility.
We will do what we can at NAC to contribute to better numbers for the Philippines, and we look forward to collaborating with everyone else in their own respective organizations – in the private as well as the public sector – doing this same work!
