8 out of 10 Filipinos prefer environment-friendly products — Pulse Asia survey

A Pulse Asia survey shows 83% of Filipinos prefer environment-friendly products and services from brands with environment-friendly operations.

The results of the survey — conducted from November 27 to December 1 and commissioned by Stratbase ADR Institute — was presented by Pulse Asia President Ronald Holmes in Thursday's forum on sustainable and strategic waste management.

"The message is clear: a sizable majority of Filipinos will support enterprises that have environment-friendly operations and products," said Holmes at the forum organized by the Stratbase ADR Institute, the Philippine Business for Environmental Stewardship (PBEST), and The Climate Reality Project Philippines.

"The question now is whether industries or firms will be able to cater to this preference,” he added.

Participants of the survey were asked "As a consumer, do you prefer to patronize products and/or services of brands or enterprises that you believe have environment-friendly operations or products?"

While the term "environment-friendly" was not explained to them, the survey results showing Filipinos' sentiment toward sustainability couldn't have come at a better time.

Climate change is a growing concern worldwide, with scientists already sounding the alarm. The world must limit its warming to 1.5C to 2C in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But according to the latest report by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in 2021, Earth is projected to hit 1.5 or 1.6C in seven short years, or around 2030.

At a recent IPCC briefing arranged by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, Dr. Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London and member of Working Group 1 of the IPCC, said "it's still the time to act. Not a time to despair."

At Thursday's forum, Stratbase ADR Institute, the Philippine Business for Environmental Stewardship (PBEST), and The Climate Reality Project Philippines all pushed for circular economy.

Under the Extended Producer Responsibility Law of 2022, (EPR) circular economy refers to an economic model of efficiently utilizing resources by its continual use and retaining the highest utility and value of products through sharing, leasing, reuse, repair, refurbishment, and recycling in an almost closed loop.

It is the exact opposite of the current linear economic "take-make-waste" model, where raw materials extracted from natural resources end up as waste on land, water, and air.

At Thursday's event, Environment Assistant Secretary and DENR-Environmental Management Bureau Director Gilbert Gonzales said a circular economy "offers a strategy and a pathway that could potentially reduce GHG emissions across the economic sectors and value chains, by transforming the way products are designed and used, and derive more value from products through better product design, increased value-retention of materials, and diversion of waste from landfills."

Climate Reality Project Philippine Branch Manager Nazrin Castro echoed Gonzales and said "A circular economy can help avoid excessive consumption, waste and use of fossil fuels by leasing, reusing, repairing, and recycling existing materials and products."

At the event, Climate Reality Leader Carlo Delantar and Circular Economy Pioneer at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, underscored three principles of circular economy: (1) designing out waste and pollution, (2) keeping products and materials in use, and (3) regenerating natural systems.

So businesses can transition to circularity by shifting to renewable energy, for instance, or adapting to a refilling distribution method to limit waste and curb plastic pollution.

Management Association of the Philippines Vice President Alexander Cabrera shared various circular business models already changing the private sector landscape in the country, including circular inputs (using renewable, recycled, or highly recyclable inputs in the production process), sharing economy (maximizing idle assets by renting or leading it), product as service (selling the same product to the maximum amount of people over and over again); product use extension (designs products for repairability, upgradability reusability, reconditioning, and recyclability of all components), and resource recovery (recovering embedded materials, energy, and resources from products at the end of use).

At the event, Cabrera said a circular economy model will not only benefit the environment and society but can also add value to businesses.

And with a majority of Filipinos preferring environment-friendly products and businesses with environment-friendly operations, perhaps it's time for businesses to consider going circular. — GMA Integrated News