Ayala joins World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1st in the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — Ayala Corp., the country’s oldest conglomerate, has joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the first Philippine company to do so.

The listed holding company has aligned its strategies with the UN Sustainable Development Goals through the Ayala Sustainability Blueprint, its chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala said.

The sustainability blueprint is a group-wide plan specifically designed to support the achievement of the UN SDGs by 2030 and to enable Ayala to tangibly contribute to three pillars where its businesses can generate the most significant and lasting impact.

These are access and inclusivity, productivity and competitiveness, and responsible growth and innovation.

Through its sustainability blueprint, Ayala is able to institutionalize the creation of meaningful work that would channel its employees’ talents towards positive change, and ultimately, accelerate inclusive growth.

Zobel said part of this whole changing journey for companies like Ayala is to recognize that the future of work in Asia Pacific is not just about new jobs, new skills, and new ways to work and learn.

“It is ultimately about motivating employees through purpose-driven work and driving productivity towards inclusive growth,”Zobel said at the J.P. Morgan-Asia Society One Step Ahead forum last week.

“As we continue these conversations and prepare for the future as individual companies and as a community of enterprises, let us keep in mind an important matter: we also have to create and offer purpose-driven work to our various teams. I believe that [if] we can properly harness technology, properly harness innovation, and properly harness meaningfulness, we will certainly contribute to a more progressive Philippines and Asia Pacific,” he said.

Zobel said the  Asia Pacific would likely be facing socio- economic challenges and a growing number of workers displaced by automation and digitization.

“Infusing our organizations and our people’s jobs with a deeper and higher purpose should be part and parcel of any discussion about the Future of Work,” Zobel said.