Local regulators requiring sustainability reports soon

Sustainability Communications can soon be a multi-billion business in the Philippines, as it is overseas.

Right now, only one Filipino agency offers the service and just twenty big local firms of the top 1,000 listed companies have caught on to the need for it.

“We are the only sustainability communications agency in the country,” Drink Sustainability Communications President and CEO Harris Guevarra confirmed.

“We produce sustainability reports based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Framework, so clients can take stock of their operations to ensure they have a positive effect where they operate.”

But anytime soon, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will impose sustainability reporting alongside the mandatory annual report for all listed firms and he foresees a big scramble for his service.

“The SEC is already working on the guidelines and report template," he elaborated. "Those in investor relations of conglomerates, energy firms and banks are pushing for sustainability reporting because investors use them to gauge a company’s viability.”

Already, the SEC’s counterparts in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa require listed firms to disclose their sustainability performance.

“In the US and Europe, they’ve started with this long before the rest.”

In fact, sustainability reporting started in the country a decade ago, with Manila Water of Ayala Corporation as Drink’s first customer.

The agency also made sustainability reports for top corporations, NGOs and government agencies.

Drink’s current clients include Ayala, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (including subsidiaries Maynilad, Philex Mining and PXP), Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Universal Robina Corporation, Aboitiz Group, First Philippine Holdings (including subsidiaries First Gen Corporation and Energy Development Corporation) and Megaworld Corporation.

Furthermore, Drink has worked with the Unionbank of the Philippines, Land Bank of the Philippines, UNICEF, Philippine Competition Commission, Wholesale Electricity Stock Market, Team Energy, San Roque Power Corporation, Philippine National Oil Company, Health Policy Development Program (HPDP) and Forest Foundation of the Philippines.

To date, the 8-year Drink employs a workforce of 19, which Guevarra expects to shoot up to over a hundred once the SEC imposes sustainability reporting. “I’m getting ready for it.”

“We do everything a creative agency does but our focus is sustainability. We help clients gather data, extract stories from the data and communicate all these.”

The cost of a sustainability communications package, depending on the size of a company, ranges from 11.5 million to 12.5 million and takes six months to complete.