FPIP earns special PEZA award for healthy, sustainable practices

MANILA, Philippines — Lopez-led First Philippine Industrial Park (FPIP) received the Green, Healthy, Smart, and Sustainable Ecozone Award from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) for FPIP’s “notable commitment to promoting healthy industrialization and sustainably-designed, smart, and green economic zone.”

FPIP was one of only two ecozones to receive the award – the first to be given by PEZA – when the government agency held online ceremonies on Dec. 10, to honor outstanding registered economic zone locators and developers and at the same time mark its 25th anniversary.

PEZA opened the new Green, Healthy, Smart and Sustainable Ecozone Award category for the year 2020 ceremonies as a way to encourage ecozone developers to, among other things, “design ecozone towards sustainability and a decarbonized future”; and “adopt clean and green technologies/methodologies” that would make ecozone operations “more efficient and environment-friendly”.

To earn the award, FPIP met no less than 10 rigorous qualifying criteria, such as compliance with requirements under Renewable Energy (RE) Act of 2008; the Clean Air Act; the Philippine Green Building Code; and the Energy Efficiency Conservation Act.

The criteria also included putting in place various systems – solid and liquid waste disposal system; recycling system; energy management system and RE development; water use and re-use system – on top of projects designed to minimize the impact of climate change.

A 520-hectare ecozone in Santo Tomas and Tanauan in  Batangas, FPIP was established by the Lopez Group through First Philippine Holdings Corp., together with Sumitomo Corp. of Japan, as a way of helping create jobs for Filipinos by developing a world-class location for manufacturers and traders from around the world. To date, FPIP and its locators provide employment for over 60,000 Filipinos.

The FPIP locators are manufacturers of various products mainly for the export market: B/E Aerospace makes aircraft, interior products and solutions; Brother Industries (Philippines) Inc., color inkjet printer and label printer products; Canon Business Machines (Philippines) Inc., monochrome laser beam printers; Ibiden (Philippines) Inc., integrated circuit packaging products; while Philippine Manufacturing Co. of Murata Inc., produces multi-layer ceramic capacitors.