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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider BPI's Earth Day vow to halt coal financing hailed

BPI's Earth Day vow to halt coal financing hailed

Published Apr 22, 2021 06:23 pm

Green energy group Withdraw from Coal (WFC) has hailed the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) for committing to completely step away from financing coal--a "dirty" energy source--in the very near future.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, April 22, WFC acknowledged remarks from BPI President Cezar Consing saying that the Bank intends to achieve a zero-coal loan portfolio by 2037. He further said he expects to be able to halve BPI's outstanding coal loans by the end of 2026.

Consing reportedly gave these statements during the bank's annual stockholders meeting (ASM). The meeting fell on the annual celebration of Earth Day.

“We hope the statement President Consing made today is a direction that the bank intends to continue working for and improving in, even as its leadership changes to incoming president Limcaoco," said Bishop Gerry Alminaza of the Diocese of San Carlos, convenor of WFC.

"We are ready to support and applaud the bank in its move away from coal,”  Alminaza added.

Only last Tuesday, April 20, WFC released its "Coal Divestment Scorecard" wherein BPI landed on top spot with a grade of 3.80 out of 5. This means that the bank still has high involvement when it comes to financing coal projects in the country.

According to WFC, BPI has funded at least 15 coal plant projects and six coal developer companies.

“With this pronouncement, BPI is finally starting to succumb to growing pressure from its stakeholders - from depositors and investors to communities affected by the coal projects it helped build - on the urgency of stopping financing for coal," another WFC convenor in Gerry Arances said of Consing's remarks.

"We consider this a victory and a manifestation of the dent that a strong civic movement, backed by moral leadership of the Church, can make in moving our banks away from this dirty energy source. BPI, however, can do much more to actually align to the 1.5 degree C Paris goal as it says it intends to do,” he said.

Although he described the move to reduce coal loans by half in the next five years as "a good start", Arances claimed that it is "still underwhelming given that BPI is responsible for 27 percent of all coal lending across 15 local banks."

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