Posted on

My three weeks as a sustainability consultant

The end of October marked the end of my three weeks with the Orange ASEAN Factory – a sustainability consulting training program for “young” professionals (yes, I made the cut!) from Southeast Asia and the Netherlands. This run brought together 20 participants from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Netherlands, grouped us into small teams, and had us work on business cases for real-life sustainability issues from their partner companies. The OAF was initiated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and is currently organized by TheRockGroup, a sustainability consulting company in the Netherlands. This Manila run was the 7th run since OAF started in 2016.

I applied to join OAF because 1) sustainability-related training is hard to come by in general (and especially in the Philippines), and 2) I wanted experience in other industries. This 7th edition was held in Manila, so fortunately or unfortunately, I didn’t go far. Previous runs were held in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. Would have been nice to work in another country for a change but there were still advantages to staying close to home.

Continue reading “My three weeks as a sustainability consultant”

Posted on

How to Green Your Holidays

Christmas is upon us and with the joy and celebrations come the piles of torn wrapping paper, mounds of food waste, busted string lights,and other stresses that will make Mother Nature shout “Bah humbug!”. But it doesn’t have to be like that. It’s possible to celebrate Christmas without creating a trash pile for Santa’s elves.

  • Collect your coffee (and planner stickers) in a For Here mug or your own reusable tumbler. 

How many coffees do you need to buy to get a free planner? How many thousands of people want the same planner you do? Multiply the two and you have an idea how many paper cups are thrown in landfills just this Christmas season to get that free planner. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Bring your own mug and save the planet. As a bonus, many coffee shops (both chain and independent) give you a discount for bringing your own mug. Chances are, by the time you collect enough stickers for that planner, you’d have saved enough from the cup discount to buy yourself a bonus coffee.

  • Unplug your Christmas lights before you go to sleep.

If you’ve had your Christmas lights installed since November 1st, you’re probably already feeling the monetary pinch from keeping them running all the time. Remember to unplug your lights before you go to sleep. Anyway, no one’s awake to appreciate them. If you can, invest in LED lights too. While they cost more in the beginning, they also last longer and are safer to use.

Christmas Spirit

  • Unplug appliances before you leave town.

Appliances left plugged in still use electricity – often called “phantom energy” – so unplug them when not in use, and especially when you’re about to leave on a long trip.

genius invention: why didn't I think of this?

  • Say no to food waste.

Food waste – whether it’s the waste from food preparation (think peelings) or waste from your plate – almost always also ends up in landfills. Once there, they decompose without air and produce methane.  Methane is an even worse greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide, trapping 28 to 36 times more heat compared to CO2.

Reduce food waste by planning properly so that there are no leftovers. If there are leftovers, give them away or eat them right away before they spoil.

Compost the food prep waste. If you have even a small garden, you can compost at home using the Bokashi method. If you need to compost food waste from a large party (your company party maybe?), consider hiring a composting service like Green Space.

The aftermath 3

  • Go for greener gifting.

Everybody loves gifts. We love getting them and we love giving them (to people we actually like). But to soften the blow to the environment and avoid all the messy post-unwrapping cleanup, consider:

  • Gifts that don’t need to be wrapped, like tickets to concerts or classes and store gift certificates. One of my friends gave me gift certificate for classes with Writer’s Block Philippines and it’s one of my favorite things ever.
  •  

  • Gifts that keep on giving, like donations to charity on behalf of your recipient
  • Buying gifts from environmentally and socially conscious SMEs. Buying locally made items from local companies supports more jobs and keeps the money inside our economy. Last year, I gave away bottles of tea concentrate from Bayani Brew. The tea leaves come from small Filipino farmers who are paid fairly, the price is right, and the tea itself is damned good. I’m also a big fan of SGD Coffee, who buys their beans directly from small farmers in Sagada,
  • Placing gifts in reusable gift bags. I save all the paper gift bags from the previous Christmas so I can reuse them for the next year. If you don’t like paper gift bags, maybe you can learn the art of furoshiki instead.

For this year’s gifts, I’ve gone for the following:

  • Bath and Home Care gift sets from Messy Bessy for the family titos and titas. Messy Bessy’s corporate gift guide, Christmas catalog, and regular catalog are available for download:

Messy Bessy Corporate Gift Guide 2018

Messy Bessy CATALOG 2018

They offer free shipping within Metro Manila for orders worth at least Php 5,000. If you’re getting items from the regular catalog, they offer 5% discount and free shipping for orders worth at least Php 5,000.

  • Baby-safe liquid laundry detergent from Messy Bessy for my brother and sister-in-law (and super cute niece)
  • Books from Adarna House and Tahanan Books for my inaanaks. Support local authors and publishers!
  • Homemade goodies for my friends and cousins. Yes, they are my (unwilling) test subjects for my baking.

 Merry Christmas everyone!

Posted on

Heathrow’s journey to sustainability

International airports around the globe have major impacts on the environment, and as companies across all industries push toward a sustainable future, it’s important that aviation facilities such as London’s Heathrow Airport doesn’t get left behind.

Heathrow is the third busiest airport in the world when it comes to passenger traffic, accessible by more than 90 airlines according to Parking4Less, which can be quite concerning for the environmentalist given the amount of fossils fuels required to run such a large aviation hub. Believe it or not, the airport ranked among the top 10 best corporations for responsible business as airport operators continue to work with together with partner companies and national and international organisations in pursuit of an eco-friendly and socially responsible airport.

Heathrow_responsible_business

Besides ensuring the safety of passengers and the wellness of their staff, Heathrow operators are committed to supporting economic growth locally, regionally, and nationally, as well as investing in local communities. Reducing their environmental impact is also outlined in their Responsible Heathrow 2020 plan. The environmental goals are as follows:
– Reduce carbon emissions from buildings by 34 percent
– Reduce noise from all aircrafts to comply with international standards
– Recycle 70 percent of water and waste produced
– Reduce ground-based nitrogen oxide emissions from the airport by at least 5 percent

Their efforts in environmentally sound operations haven’t gone unnoticed, with numerous environmental agencies regarding the airport as a leader in sustainable business. Other than their four-star ranking with Business in the Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index for management, performance, and development of specific and measurable targets, Heathrow’s collection of accolades include having won four International Green Apple Awards for sustainable development and environmental best practice. They have also received multiple Biodiversity Benchmark awards, along with plenty of others.

With the progress currently outlined in the latest sustainability report, it would seem that Heathrow is well on its way in becoming an environmentally and socially responsible airport.

Author’s Bio
Jayde Kim
Having traveled all over the world, Jayde was thoroughly impressed with a number of airports which strongly advocated for sustainability and clean travel. When she’s not busy teaching environmental science to sixth graders, you can catch her cycling around town or hiking on forest trails.

 

 

From Macy:
Hey dear Readers! Because responsible travel and sustainability is such a broad topic, I figured it would be a good idea to get some guest contributions for the blog to get a different perspective on how sustainability is done around the world 🙂

Posted on

What does it mean to win Tourism for Tomorrow?

miniloc team with announcement

The World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) Tourism for Tomorrow Awards are one of the highest accolades in the travel and tourism industry. The Awards were established to highlight and promote sustainable tourism best practices worldwide. On behalf of the company, my boss received the Tourism for Tomorrow 2013 Award for the Community Benefit category last April 9, 2013 during the WTTC’s 13th Global Summit in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The Philippines is ahead of Abu Dhabi by a few time zones so I actually found out that we won at around 12:15 am on April 10. My boss posted the simple status message “We. Won.” and a photo of the trophy. A flurry of internal screaming (my roommate was asleep and would have killed me if I woke her up), furious tweets and retweets, and Facebook shares later, I called Aids and said “We won.” Took me another hour and a few games of Temple Run to slow my brain so that I could sleep. A good couple of hours later, the sun is up and I’m back at work but my brain is still on a high. Luckily, my Facebook and Twitter contacts have been very patient and understanding about my endless posts about our company winning the award. Why is winning Tourism for Tomorrow such a big deal?

TFT 2013 trophy
Of course my boss took a picture of the trophy 😀

  • It’s recognition. Sustainable tourism is only now just getting off the ground in the Philippines but our company has been at it since we opened 31 years ago as a dive camp in Miniloc Island. It’s not easy to do – just ask my boss! – so recognition that we’re an industry leader is always welcome. As an industry leader, we hope to become a case study for how to grow a tourism business without sacrificing the foundation of the business – the environment and the local community.
  • It’s validation. We already know that we’re doing the right thing – hiring locally, investing in staff training, protecting the environment, and supporting local businesses – but having an outside party composed of international experts agree with us is still pretty cool.
  • It’s more promotion for us. Hey, we’re a business after all. Increased media exposure for us means (hopefully!) more guests. More guests means more staff, more local purchases, and more funding to continue what we’re doing. We wouldn’t have been able to install mooring buoys around Bacuit Bay in the 1990s if we didn’t have any money. More guests means more students of sustainable tourism. I’m also hoping that as a result of the promotional blitz for our win, we get more guests who chose to spend their holidays with us because of what we’re doing.

The Boss is asking us to plan a victory party. It’s going to take some doing since we have to coordinate with the resorts, ITI, TKP, and our partners in the local community. It’ll be worth it though because we’re going to celebrate a win that was 31 years in the making 🙂

It's easy to be awesome when you're surrounded by equally awesome people :)
It’s easy to be awesome when you’re surrounded by equally awesome people 🙂 Rima and Mavs aren’t in the photo. We miss you guys!!!