After being named one of the recipients of the Best Sustainability Company of the Year award at the Asia CEO Awards last year, outsource staffing solutions company Booth and Partners (B&P) has taken its advocacy to the next level by marking World Cleanup Day 2022 with a simultaneous underwater and coastal cleanup in Argao and Badian in Cebu province last month.
Together with their 1-percent-for-the-planet partner Coastal Conservation Education Foundation Inc. (CCEF) and the local government units of Argao and Badian, the cleanup drive dubbed “Ocean Ally: World Cleanup Day with Booth and Partners” was able to gather around 250 participants from the LGUs, the coastal community, independent volunteers, as well as B&P employees
“We are mostly in Metro Manila. However, in the last year, we have expanded in Metro Cebu as well and so that was the big reason for us to start to engage with them because we now have employees and resources in Cebu where CCEF is operating,” said B&P co-founder and managing director Jamie Booth.
As B&P’s maiden on-site corporate social responsibility (CSR) event with the Cebu-based organization that specializes in coastal resource management, the tandem removed not just visible marine pollutants in the area but also a massive so-called “ghost net.”
“We call these abandoned nets as ghost nets because even if there are no fishermen, the nets are still able to catch fish,” said CCEF’s project associate for fisheries and fish visual census Danilo Delizo Jr.
Apart from trapping fish in the seas, ghost nets are especially harmful to corals, he said.
As a company that is centered on a culture of accountability, B&P has always been proactive in its CSR efforts ever since its launch.
“We didn’t want to go down the road wherein we were just donating but not actively participating. We want to be real. They (1-percent-for-the-planet) basically created an ecosystem wherein we can do our giving, and provide our CSR efforts method, but it’s tracked, it’s measured, and it’s certified. And it’s real,” Booth said.
“For us, we are a growing business and where we see it going in the future is we are growing so our resources are growing and our donations will grow. We hope that it will continue to be a supportive relationship between our organizations. And we look forward to building our relationship with them and finding different ways to help them with their causes in protecting the coral reefs of the Philippines,” he added.