Sustainability In Business

The World Bank has stated that experts have included the Philippines in being part of the top 10 countries that contribute to plastic leakages in seas and rivers.

With a country dependent on sachets and the use of plastic in everyday products, it is up to big-time businesses to innovate.

With Filipino families living below the poverty line and living day-to-day, barely having enough to go by, the use of sachets by this socioeconomic group is a means of living. Some cannot afford to buy in bulk or shampoo bottles, as opposed to sachets.

Then Acting Secretary of the DENR, Jim O. Sampulna appealed to businesses and vendors to reduce the use of single-use plastics and non-biodegradable plastics for packaging as these as the main contributors to the country’s waste.

Although every single action towards environmental protection is welcomed, businesses contribute more to the damage to our ecosystems.

“Using small plastic packagings like sachets and plastic bottles is still rampant in our country today. I am urging all manufacturing firms to come up with their recovery project where they will retrieve and buy back these plastic wastes from their consumers for cash or even food items like rice and groceries,”  said Sampulna.

With the pandemic further exacerbating the problem, with masks, alcohol bottles, wipes, and single-use items, our planet has never been more suffocated.

“However, when we drill down on the environmental initiatives of various businesses, only a few CEOs said that they track their carbon emission and make a deliberate effort in reducing carbon footprint,”  said Mary Jade Roxas-Divinagracia, Deals and Corporate Finance Managing Partner at PwC Philippines last year.

This year, record high levels of heat were reported around Europe, which is a region not used to scorching temperatures and has been reporting heatwaves and wildfires due to the heat.

With the geographic position of the Philippines, our country is prone to natural disasters.

With a country still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, we need to take care of the environment, to take care of us.

Sources: Inquirer, Philippine News Agency