Meralco makes sustainability its top agenda

MANILA, Philippines — Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s largest power distributor, has started to make sustainability its main agenda in its business strategy and operations as it charts its green journey to help save the environment.

The company has formed a sustainability office (SO), affirming its commitment to sustainability as front and center to its business, Meralco chief sustainability officer Raymond Ravelo said.

While the SO has started its push for sustainability, Meralco is crunching numbers as it studies the technical components of its program.

“Definitely there will be a budget for that. We want to make sure that something we’re going to prioritize has a budget,” Ravelo said.

As Meralco pushes for its sustainability agenda, it has identified four areas to focus on, which are planet, people, power and prosperity.

Ravelo said the company would develop and execute programs to help preserve and protect the environment while embedding a sustainable mindset within the organization.

“A big part of sustainability is ensuring we electrify and energize all unserved and underserved areas within our franchise. 24x7x365,” he said.

“Finally, underpinning all our efforts is the objective of helping create prosperity for all. And we will achieve this by ensuring that our decisions as a company, our initiatives and our investments, are guided and balanced by sustainability principles,” he said.

Encapsulated in the Powering the Good Life program, Meralco will have five priority areas namely direct emissions reduction, resource efficiency, waste management, community electrification, and workplace excellence.

Ravelo said among the projects identified and launched include the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on Meralco’s facilities in Ortigas and in sector and business center offices.

Meralco’s entire vehicle fleet is also evaluated as to which units can be electrified, beginning with eMotorcycles for the business centers and subsequently transitioning all service vehicles.

“All these form part of our effort to build what we will call the Meralco Smart and Sustainable City,” Ravelo said.

Meralco has also embarked on a program to “greenify” Lopez Building by continuing to replace lights with LED and also to convert air conditioning units to inverter type ones.

“I think at the end of this year there would be significant improvements, at least with the lights and air conditioning units,” Ravelo said.

For waste management, Meralco banned single-use plastic products across its subsidiaries last year.

The ban from all of its premises, activities, and corporate events was implemented on Oct. 1 as part of its thrust to help save the country’s environment.

Starting Nov. 1, the ban will also apply to Meralco’s subsidiaries namely Meralco Industrial Engineering Services Corp., CIS Bayad Center Inc., Meralco Energy Inc., Radius Telecoms Inc., MSpectrum Inc., MRAIL Inc., Meralco Powergen Corp., and eSakay Inc. (eSakay).