SMC power unit plants 2.7M trees

ALONGSIDE plans to push for the use of cleaner energy, SMC global Power Holdings corp. (SMCGP) said it has planted a total of 2.7 million seedlings and propagules in two years.

The power firm said over the weekend that this move is part of a reforestation and carbon capture program dubbed Project 747, which aims to plant seven million trees over 4,000 hectares in at least seven provinces to help mitigate climate change.

The project, which aims to plant a million trees every year, complements Smcgp’s goal of adding cleaner and renewable power facilities to its power portfolio after dropping plans to put up three clean-coal power plants with a capacity of 1,500 MW, as part of San Miguel corp.’s (SMC) larger sustainability goals.

“Through massive reforestation, we can help mitigate the impacts of climate change. over the past couple of years, we have also been utilizing the best and most modern technologies to minimize our impact on the environment, even as we try to provide for our country’s growing need for reliable and affordable power,” said SMC President Ramon S. ang.

Recently, SMC announced that SMCGP is nearing completion on a number of battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities it is building in various locations across the country. Between 2021 and 2022, the company is looking to complete a total of 31 BESS facilities that will not only improve power reliability throughout the country, but will also make way for the integration of some 3,000 megawatts of intermittent renewable power into the grid.

SMC has also announced that it is building solar plants equipped with BESS facilities at 10 locations. a liquefied natural gas plant and some hydroelectric power plants, are also in the pipeline as part of its move towards cleaner and renewable technologies.

“as with our other initiatives, this massive tree-planting project represents our commitment to environmental stewardship. With each of our business units pursuing sustainability programs and engaging their respective communities to help out, I am confident we can collectively achieve a lot in the next couple of years in terms of meeting our climate goals,” ang said.

as of July 9, SMCGP had completed planting 780,214 seedlings out of the 1.1 million targeted for this year over 268 hectares of land in Zambales, Davao occidental, Bataan, Negros occidental, Pangasinan, albay, and Quezon province.

Planting of the remaining 320,000 trees is expected to be completed by September in these seven provinces and Bulacan. From 2019 to 2020, the company, together with farmer and fisherfolk organizations at or near planting sites, had planted 1,994,988 seedlings and propagules. ang underscored the importance of community involvement in the reforestation project. Project 747, he said, is a partnership with some 24 fisherfolk and farmers’ organizations, which help in identifying indigenous tree varieties for planting, and are key to nurturing the young trees and ensuring high survival rates.

Tree varieties in the upland plantation are narra, molave, white lauan, palosapis, agoho, batino, igang, and malabayabas while mangrove varieties include bakawan babae, bakawan lalaki, bungalon, and api-api. The survival rates of upland trees and mangrove propagules planted are at 89 and 91 percent, respectively.