In a genuine commitment to achieve net zero by 2050, the Net Zero Carbon Alliance (NZCA) encouraged more companies in the Philippines to take sustainable climate actions by sharing practices and building capabilities.
“We encourage everyone; we share technologies; we share best practices so that some of our partners will make good their commitment to become net zero by 2050 or before,” said Atty. Allan Barcena, NZCA executive director and head of corporate support functions at Energy Development Corporation (EDC).
Barcena affirmed that other companies are “more advanced in terms of reduction; some are starting, some are building their capabilities to be able to make significant reductions,” highlighting that being NZCA partners needs commitment to be put into action as these are “what they have signed up for.”
However, the Philippines face challenges with the government’s insufficient initiatives in obtaining net zero despite the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to cut carbon emissions by 75 percent. Barcena said that the country has no declaration on achieving net zero in 2050.
“It would have been better if, as a country, you commit, and then everything follows. Other sectors like energy, agriculture, the private sector, private companies, and the academe will all follow your commitment,” Barcena claimed.
In order to organize and sustain the alliance, it requires manpower and resources—having partnerships and “ability to influence the government.” One step is setting up a fund to support decarbonization.
NZCA’s collective baseline
Barcena said it is important to do a “collective baseline” to determine their starting point when it comes to specific net zero targets, although EDC and their individual partners are still figuring out their own baseline.
The executive director also said that there will always be an emission, and so it is a crucial step to bring it down as low as possible, and the residual emission that can no longer be reduced must be offset.
There are three (3) scopes that the members have to do: scope 1 is direct emissions, scope 2 is indirect emissions, and scope 3 is the value chain.
“We develop the portal or the gateway so everyone can see the progress of the members. Others to keep. We don’t want [that] you become a member of NZCA, but you are not doing reduction,” Barcena said, emphasizing that the NZCA portal was generated for an internal push for the members to do their jobs.
Barcena said that scope 3 that makes the process complete is an extremely difficult step as they need “to measure the emission of the supply chain, which is beyond your control.”
He also said that the standard is to have their claimed carbon emission reductions verified by a third-party audit. As of now, there are still few who are doing third-party audits—the highest level—for unbiased verifications of their claimed carbon emission reduction, making sure that it is transparent and authentic.
Barcena said that NZCA is not in a hurry to grow big as they realized the responsibility of being NZCA member-partner. Although most of their partner-companies are Manila-based, they hope to expand in regional centers.