Lopez Group: Saving planet Earth for the next generation
In the convention of business success, it could just come too easy for industry captains to abandon scientism and merely focus on the economic gains that their trade and enterprises could pull off.
Often, a global scale conundrum like preserving the environment is obscured in the overall agenda of businesses – but for the Lopez group, this is one particular adversity-solving that they take closest to their hearts – chiefly to put it right for the sake of the next generation.
Oscar M. Lopez, the conglomerate’s patriarch and chairman of the board of Lopez Group Foundation, Inc. (LGFI), weaves the kind of propulsive inspiration and insight in which all executives and employees of their companies would have to live by – not just in the workplace but in advancing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives that could build up a crescendo of “best outcomes” for consumers and the public that they serve.
His wisdom echoes across all corporate segments of the Lopez group, as he contended that: “To survive, any business or corporation must be useful to the society it serves.”
For the Lopez Group Foundation, its “social contract” with the Filipino people delves with CSR programs and initiatives for the protection and preservation of the environment and Mother Earth; education, livelihood, promotion of arts and culture, health and wellness as well as other forms of humanitarian assistance – all helmed in the intent of “doing good, doing right, doing it well, telling it well and doing it now.”
Saving the environment from its leap into the ‘frying pan’
In her recent soul-stirring speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, young environmental activist Greta Thunberg got her grips on the collapsing ecosystem and on what is perceived as the beginning of human extinction.
“The eyes of all future generation are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this – right here, right now is where we draw the line,” declares Thunberg, who had become the voice and leading force of the young generation into reversing the world’s climate change predicaments.
Quite frankly, long before the world had seen this very young lady in the global stage voicing out her concern for the environment, the Lopez group has already been making headway on this sphere – not just on the realm of its CSR ventures but even in the very core of its corporates.
In the energy sector, the Lopez group appears to be the “lone voice” in the entire industry or in the country when it comes to advocating resource developments that are only leaning on “green energy technologies” – limiting its portfolio to just gas-fired power facilities and renewable energy installations.
Be that as it may, Federico R. Lopez, chairman of First Philippine Holdings Corporation and member of the board of trustees of the Lopez Group Foundation, persistently defended this business decision, as he professed that “we urgently need to overhaul how we relate with the Earth if we want to keep it habitable in the decades to come.” To an extent, he opined that “the way we measure progress and success in our world is severely broken,” with him noting that the economic successes of countries are often judged by their gross domestic product (GDP) growths; or when corporate stocks are rated to be “good investments” or how high net incomes the companies have been registering.
Despite these prevailing corporate mantras, he shares the view that thriving businesses today must not foment a burial ground for all hopes and aspirations that there is still something that can be done to parry any portended catastrophic impact of global warming.
“There is no Plan B or Planet B, as some would say,” Lopez asserts, while emphasizing that “real and lasting shareholder value can only be had when we place the interests of all our stakeholders, our customers, the planet and humanity at the center of everything we do.”
Toward this goal, First Gen which is the linchpin energy company of the Lopez group along with its subsidiary Energy Development Corporation (EDC), advanced several initiatives geared toward environmental preservation, livelihood as well as education in its host communities as well as in various parts of the country.
Via its “Center of Center” flagship program, the Lopez group intensified efforts in preserving the marine biodiversity of Verde Island Passage in Batangas — which in the process, had helped improve livelihood opportunities for people in the area (including higher fish yield for fishermen); and reinforced responsible tourism activities.
The LGFI also carried out “Protect A Watershed” tree growing project, which enabled it to achieve reforestation of at least 15 hectares within a three-year span with the planting of native and fruit-bearing trees; and at the watershed of its PantabanganMasiway hydro plant in Nueva Ecija, the company had maintained the 848 hectares watershed and added additional 90 hectares for indigenous tree species as part of its reforestation endeavor. That complements the BINHI green legacy program of subsidiary EDC that propagates the planting of hardwood species at its project sites.
Passion for arts and culture
Mercedes “Cedie” Lopez-Vargas, president and executive director of LGFI, is the passionate and leading light figure in the many CSR programs and projects being advocated by the Lopez group.
She is pouring out her heart not just in the multitudes of reforestation, livelihood and educational enhancement initiatives of the conglomerate, but Vargas and the entire Lopez family had always been known as fervid patrons of arts and culture.
Through ArteFino, which had served as a launching platform and meeting ground for artists as well as the art lovers and their enthusiastic supporters, the Lopez group had also been finding its niche in helping promote the ingenuity of Filipino talents.
As Lopez-Vargas noted, the Filipino culture had already been “caught up in our Western ways that we forget to be proud of the things that have brought us to where we are now.”
Through the lens of art, she noted that this thrives as “a way for us to encourage stronger national pride, because sometimes we forget who we are.”
For the entire Lopes group, Lopez-Vargas asserted that in CSR programs like planting trees, nurturing school children through scholarship programs and other learning enhancement programs, promoting livelihood or fostering health care and wellness endeavors, what they ought to carve is “a legacy of a better world for the people that will come after us – whether it is art, tradition and culture or creating forests for the future.” (MMV)