ACES 2020 trophyIts pursuit to produce 100% clean and renewable energy as it enhances the environment and empowers its stakeholders won for Energy Development Corporation (EDC) the honor of being Asia’s Top Sustainability Advocate in the 2020 Asia Corporate Excellence & Sustainability (ACES) Awards.

With over 400 nominees in this year’s awarding ceremony held virtually in Malaysia, EDC emerged as one of the top companies that has “genuine interest in the well-being of all its stakeholders.”

The ACES Top Sustainability Advocates award was conferred on companies that have embedded corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives into their policies and operations, and have a high level of employee and top management involvement in their programs.

“Ensuring inclusive growth among our partner communities has always been embedded in our operations. Transforming them into environmental stewards who help us maintain our BINHI reforestation projects in our areas of operation has made our efforts more meaningful and crucial to achieving our new mission of forging collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future,” Atty. Allan Barcena, head of EDC’s CSR-PR group, said.

This new mission that EDC and the rest of the Lopez Group have committed to is all about elevating or improving the state of everything they touch, including the communities, the environment, employees, cocreators and customers.

Among the many CSR programs of EDC, its 30-year-old coffee production project with the Baslay Farmers’ Association in its geothermal site in Negros Oriental brought new life to former kaingineros. The KEITECH technical-vocational school, meanwhile, plays a vital role not only in the future of underprivileged youth but also in forging a regenerative public-private partnership.

With more than 21 companies from the Philippines winning this year, EDC emerged as one whose CSR focus area has always been a combination of employee engagement, community empowerment and environmental preservation.

“The Filipino presence has been something of a given at each ACES. There is something about companies operating in the Philippines which have a predisposition towards a natural affinity for the common good of employees,” said Shanggari B, chief executive officer of MORS Group, the sustainability network that organized the event. (Story/Photos by: Frances Ariola)