Many local businesses are
adopting the green path and investing in sustainable practices. Going green
means to pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally
friendly, ecologically responsible decisions, and lifestyles which can help
protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and
future generations. From an investor point of view, where there is cost, there
is a flow of capital and opportunity. As a result businesses are looking at the
opportunities that green ventures offer.
At the international investor
Forum on Climate Change in New York and at the recent Always Going Green West
Conference in San Francisco, California, United States, global investors called
for strong action to control global warming and asserted that unmitigated
climate change poses a threat to the world economy.
Participants at the two
forums said building a low-carbon economy creates opportunity for investment in
new technologies that promise to transform society in the same way as the
introduction of electricity or railway did in the past. Quantifying the cost of
carbon emission seems the most urgent and logical step.
This has proved to be
profitable for two of the country’s leading beer and beverage manufacturers
which have been implementing pro-environment programs in their respective
plants. They have improved engineering operations to be able to recover carbon
dioxide coming out of their boilers which is used in beer carbonation at the
last stage of the beer brewing process. After putting up capital for additional
carbon dioxide reservoirs, they now earn three times the amount they invested
for carbon dioxide recovery.
With growing popularity,
going green is in: We now have green cars plying the Makati route, green zone
coaches at the LRT for cyclists with foldable bikes; and a green building
coming up in the heart of Makati. The latest additions to businesses that are
going beyond just earnings is a progressive Makati industrial house involved in
banking, telecoms, waterworks, and land development. Officials of the
conglomerate unveiled the new sustainable development thrust of the
group-looking after the welfare of the people, protecting the environment,
protecting the planet, and producing decent profits.
For quite sometime, the focus
of most businesses was on profitability and growth. Businesses today are going
beyond governance and are pursuing more aggressively a new measure of corporate
success – a formula of doing business with a conscience and being accountable
for the implications of their actions. By all indications, there is a green
victory on the way for the country which revolves around renewable energy and
clean technologies.
