Sustainability: The key to moving forward in 2022 & onward

As early as now, sustainability has already become the trend, the buzzword, brought in no small part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the expectation of the new normal.

By sustainability we mean “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.”

Back in 1983, the United Nations created the World Commission on Environment and Development to study the connection between ecological health, economic development and social equity. It was headed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, and in 1987, the commission published a report called “Our Common Future.” It has become the standard in defining sustainable development, or the blueprint for attaining sustainability.

According to the Harvard Business School Online, sustainability in business refers to “doing business without negatively impacting the environment, community, or society as a whole.” It generally addresses two main categories: the effect that business has on the environment; and the effect business has on society.

Sustainability touches on sustainable investing (sometimes called “investing for the common good”) and stakeholder capitalism that acknowledges the bigger sphere of interest that a corporation holds beyond the shareholders or investors. Climate change and EESG or Employee, Environmental, Social, and Governance concerns are also captured in the sustainability discussion and discourse.

A growing number of corporations are integrating sustainability into their business strategy, and the MVP Group of Companies is no exception. More to the fact, sustainability has always been in its organizational DNA since inception.

Just recently, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. or MPIC, the leading investment management, infrastructure and holding company of the MVP Group of Companies, became a founding member of the Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) Chief Financial Officers Leadership Network’s new Asia-Pacific Chapter.

This was announced during the A4S Annual Summit, where MPIC was represented by Chaye Cabal Revilla, MPIC’s chief finance, risk and sustainability officer.

The A4S was established in 2004 by Charles, the Prince of Wales, to “make sustainable business, business as usual.” The organization works with the finance and accounting community to inspire finance leaders to adopt sustainable and resilient business models, transform financial decision-making to reflect the opportunities and risks posed by the climate crisis and other EESG issues, and scale up action to transition to a sustainable economy.

Metro Pacific, along with other founding members, is expected to collaborate with global peers to progress the integration of finance and sustainability in ways of doing business.

According to Chaye, “Finance leaders have the distinct advantage of being at the center of all business matters. We have visibility, not just on finance, but we are also integral to risk management and strategy development and most recently, even sustainability. As such, I truly believe that we are best positioned to be catalysts for change in our organizations. With sustainability gaining more and more importance in the global mindset, we at MPIC have been focusing on integrating finance and sustainability in all our business decisions.”

In the recent A4S Summit, which was opened by a video message from Prince Charles himself, MPIC was part of the first panel discussion on “The world in 2022: Setting the path to a sustainable future — Part One.”

The host was Jessica Fries, executive chairperson of the A4S with the following as panelists or resource persons: Rishi Kalra, executive director and group CFO of Olam Food Ingredients; Martyn Roberts, group CFO of Ramsay Health Care Limited; Marc Rivers, CFO of Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited; Pavan Sukhdev, founder and CEO of GIST; and, of course, our own Chaye Cabal-Revilla.

The discussion included a deep dive into Asia Pacific, including inputs from the founding members of the A4S CEO Leadership Network in the region.

Chaye was able to share the work that MPIC was doing to build more resilience, acknowledging that everything MPIC does has a pervasive impact on the country and the people and communities it serves.

From a sustainability strategy standpoint, according to Chaye, MPIC has tried to pivot from mere risk management to overall business resilience, which also includes climate resilience.

She also shared several resiliency strategies of the corporation: accelerating climate investments, which include transition to renewables across all operating entities; investing in waste management projects such as biogas plants using anaerobic technology; pushing for digitalization across the organization as an adaptation mechanism with the many uncertainties we faced, like the MWell app born out of our current health crisis; collaborating with government agencies and key alliance groups in helping to protect our natural resources and biodiversity.

On the matter of a combined CFO and CSO role, Chaye said that it was a “blessing in disguise” and that it does help you to do things differently. Finance professionals can learn from sustainability professionals and vice-versa. Carrying a dual role allowed her to “marry profit and purpose altogether” and that it made it easy to operationalize everything, to “put numbers into sustainability initiatives” and “defined EESG aspects that impact the bottom line.”

On the remaining challenges, Chaye shared that there was no robust platform yet for sustainability reporting and that putting together the information needed was being done manually. Perhaps the IT world would be able to develop a useful platform for all to use.

What we are excited about in areas of focus, she said, are collaborative platforms for a more pervasive impact, addressing climate change as well as developing our ecosystems for biodiversity.

To learn from all the hard work that has already been done, MPIC will focus on nature-based solutions in trying to protect the environment, and on doing our part in protecting national ecosystems, according to Chaye. On this note, I could not agree more.

Humanity is hinged on nature, and we need to fortify our environmental stewardship programs.

Indeed, in this ever-VUCA world that we live in, the stresses of COVID-19 still malingering despite the massive global vaccination effort, sustainability is the key in ensuring a better and brighter future for all.

May we welcome the coming New Year not only with much hope, but also with much guarded and sustainable foresight for what lies ahead.

I’d also like to congratulate our hardworking VP for investor relations, Maricris Aldover-Ysmael, for the Certificate for Excellence in Investor Relations awarded to MPIC by the IR Magazine Awards Southeast Asia 2021 — a truly deserved feather in your cap, Kris. *