HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPEVINE: OUR NEW ABNORMAL On the surface, the mission of the Sustainability Forum’s Recognition Night was crystal clear - to honor and give thanks to those who had participated as speakers and sponsors of the two-day forum. The intent of the forum was to showcase the diversity of the government institutions and private companies that champion sustainability, and demonstrate that it already permeates through much of our everyday lives. And then hopefully, the audience/viewers would recognize that it’s only a matter of being open about it, to welcome its accessibility, and if even on a soft impact basis, make changes in their lifestyles to contribute to its progress. The intangibles were not as obvious, and had to be stage-managed to a point. But I’m happy to say that on all accounts, this was successful as well. For me, the recognition night could also be about community-building - bringing like-minded individuals from a diverse set of companies together, and letting them establish commonalities, encourage them to network, and hopefully, find possible synergies for the near-future. If this meeting of minds could be grounded on their mutual advocacy of sustainability, so much the better. What this meant, was that as we were putting together the seat plan for the Recognition Night, we purposely didn’t go the default route of putting the representatives of any single company all in one table. We split them up, in singles or as pairs at the maximum, and made it a point so that the MB representative in each table would introduce people to their table mates. The honorees of the 1st MB Sustainability Forum, flanked by Dr. Emil Yap and MB publisher, Sec. Sonny Coloma. From Wilcon Depot, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Arthaland, BPI, Filinvest City, LIXIL-Grohe, ICTSI, Megaworld, SMIC, Toyota, Watsons, City of Dreams, AirSpeed, Aboitiz Power, and SGV; it was an intentional merry mix-up so that one’s table mates would be a cross-section of these companies advocating sustainability. As a result, the reactions we got were all extremely favorable, as these sustainability officers could compare notes, discuss challenges, and just meet others from industries and businesses not connected directly to their own - but also espousing the importance of sustainability and ESG compliance as part of their business operations. Several commented to me after that it was a refreshing change to how most events are conducted. When any of these companies mount their own sustainability initiatives, events or webinars, it’s often done to promote a single industry, or as an internal promotional tool; so the opportunity for someone from the real estate sector to be sitting in a table with someone from the bathroom fixtures world, or the beauty and personal care retail brands, was a great game-changer, and something they actually enjoyed and learned from. And they were thankful to the Manila Bulletin for creating this unique scenario. Introducing Sec. Frasco to Wilcon’s Rose Bosch-Ong Dr. Emil Yap with special guest and speaker DOT Secretary Christina G. Frasco. A common issue that I heard repeated in conversations across tables is that to trickle down awareness and understanding of sustainability is still a gargantuan task. While progress is continuously being made, it’s isn’t an easy to identify the touch points with the general public that can fast track this educational process. I refer to the comment that SMIC VP for Corporate Communications Miguel Mercado made about how, when informal surveys were done earlier this year with mall-goers on what climate change was about, the overwhelming single response was to say it had something to do with their air-conditioning unit, equating it to climate control. The Wilcon and LIXIL-Grohe representatives join up for a commemorative photo. And I thought to myself, that it’s a perfectly logical response, something that resonates on a personal level when you bring up a word like “climate” to the general population. Until we put terms such as climate change, global warming, sustainability, and ESG compliance into the vernacular, or offer concrete examples that truly impinge on their lives, they’ll treat these terms and words as “nosebleed” country. Filipinos like to traffic in false pride, and we’ll often nod and feign comprehension, then rely on memorization and the parroting of what we’ve heard. So until we get off the high chair’, and go back to basics and communicate at the ground level, much of what we do in championing Sustainability will fall on half-deaf ears. Jo Ann Bueno-Eala, BPI VP and Head of their Sustainability Office, echoed this dilemma of how to make sustainability a more accepted concept. In her case, it’s debunking the knee jerk mentality of many MSME’s that sustainability merely adds to one’s OpEx, and substantially cuts into profitability. As Jo Ann is proud to say, BPI enjoys zero percent Non-Performing Loans from the companies who made sustainability programs part of their loan applications and approval. Looking to 2023 and future iterations of the MB Sustainability forum, this then is the challenge we have to face, and find ways to overcome.