The private sector should work closely to hasten the adoption of environmentally friendly solutions that will have a positive impact on both catastrophe prevention and climate change, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Antonia Loyzaga said on Thursday, Dec. 22.
“I urge those present here today to not only look to energy efficiency – the shifts to renewable energy and resource efficiency, and establishing your process and product contributions to the circular economy – but to internalize the role of nature in adapting to climate change and its critical importance to disaster risk reduction,” she said in her keynote address at the “Sustainability Forum PH: United for Climate” held recently in Manila.
As such, Loyzaga emphasized the significance of the private sector's leadership, which has become an essential player in bridging the cost of financing climate action.
She lauded the forum for providing a platform for the formation of the Philippine Alliance for Climate Action, which aims to bring the public and private sectors together to address the threat of climate change.
According to her, the new alliance could produce the most significant results because the potential synergy among the country's major corporations will most likely generate new capacity to protect, restore, and enhance rich but threatened ecosystems.
Loyzaga called on prominent business leaders present at the occasion to think about collaborating with the DENR in pursuit of its goal of constructing area-based resilience based on evidence.
She requested their assistance in creating a national risk register that may be used to identify development plans' needs, gaps, and priorities.
In order to support the development of the agency's strategies, the DENR said that it seeks to construct a national geospatial database of natural resources, an accounting of the nation's natural resources and environmental assets.
The DENR would highly appreciate the private companies’ synergized expert insights and alignment of investments to address complex and cascading risk across sectors and scales, said Loyzaga.
The DENR chief has also stressed the importance of the private sector’s role in mainstreaming climate and disaster resilience into their core business cycles.
Per Loyzaga, the conglomerates must include not only the businesses they represent and their respective paths to net zero emissions, but also the work required beyond their fencelines to preserve and protect the ecosystems and communities that support them.
“I believe it is high time for the private sector to come together as an alliance to ensure that the ecological and economic gains as individual companies and organizations are leveraged and magnified for the good of our people, our country, and our planet,” she ended.