GUUN Co. Ltd., a Japanese waste management and recycling company, has signed a power supply deal with First Gen Corporation so it can draw its energy needs from a clean technology source.

In a statement to the media, First Gen specified that GUUN’s switch to renewable energy will support its target to pare carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 42 percent at the turn of the decade.

The one-year power supply agreement, which commenced in September 2022, stipulated that the electricity to be delivered to the Japanese firm’s facility shall be coming from the geothermal generating asset of Energy Development Corporation (EDC), a subsidiary of First Gen.

Takeshi Konishi, senior managing director and general manager of GUUN, noted that their company opted to partner with First Gen “because of its proven track record in supplying geothermal power to its customers all over the country.”

The Philippine branch of GUUN - which is sited in Consolacion, Cebu - has been producing 8,000 tons of fluff fuel, a form of refuse-derived fuel produced from waste plastics and residual waste and are primarily used in cement plants as a substitute for coal.

It was, however, qualified that the nature of recycling employed at GUUN’s facility typically requires massive electricity usage – and that in turn could precipitate higher scale of carbon emissions, especially so since the usual energy source is coal.

On its energy use shift, GUUN asserted that its propounded emissions cut-back had been anchored on 2030 scope 1 and 2 baseline data, and so far, that has already been certified by science-based targets initiative (SBTi) around August last year.

First Gen conveyed “since one of the company’s missions is to find ways to directly or indirectly reduce its CO2 emissions in its recycling activities, GUUN decided to switch to geothermal energy for its source of power knowing that this type of clean energy provides baseload power.”

The Lopez firm added “by getting power from geothermal energy, GUUN expects a 50 to 55-percent CO2 reduction in its entire recycling process locally, equivalent to 261 tonnes of CO2 emissions.”

Carlo Vega, vice president and head of First Gen’s Power Marketing, Trading, and Economics, indicated that GUUN made “the right choice of switching to RE to decarbonize its Philippine operations and help its own cement plant customers to also do the same.”

He stressed “this greening of supply chains is necessary if we truly want to be a part of the solution to our climate crisis and at the same time, future-proof our businesses.”