The Aboitiz Group, through holding company Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., emerged as the first local supporter of the International Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures in line with its commitment to good corporate governance and sustainability practices.
“AEV, being the first Philippine company to express support for the TCFD, is committed to strengthening its sustainability track and enhancing its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) integration practices,” said AEV chief financial officer Manuel Lozano.
AEV is the only Philippine company that is registered as a supporter on the TCFD website and joins over 930 TCFD international supporter organizations (as of December 2019) whose total market capitalizations top $11 trillion globally.
“As part of the Aboitiz Group’s brand promise of advancing business and communities, our long-term strategies include a defined governance structure on addressing climate-related risks and improving our disclosures to provide clear and reliable information to our stakeholders,” Lozano said.
TCFD develops voluntary and consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for use by companies in providing information to investors, lenders, insurers and other stakeholders.
It considers the physical, liability and transition risks associated with climate change and what constitutes effective financial disclosures across industries.
The work and recommendations of the TCFD help companies understand what financial markets want from disclosures in order to measure and respond to climate change risks and encourage firms to align their disclosures with investors’ needs.
Companies that express support for TCFD recommendations “join a cohort of leading companies that take action against climate change and are thoughtful to consider how climate change will impact their businesses,” according to the TCFD.
“Increasing transparency makes markets more efficient, and economies more stable and resilient,” TCFD chairman Michael Bloomberg said on the task force’s website.
The Aboitiz Group is continuously strengthening its ESG reporting and communication. Aboitiz published its first sustainability report in 2009, and its first integrated report in 2016. The Aboitiz Integrated Report has been Global Reporting Initiative-certified for three years in a row, providing assurance to our stakeholders of timely, accurate, reliable and complete information, based on the GRI framework.
Since 2017 and up to the present, the Aboitiz Group’s power business unit AboitizPower is included as a constituent of the Financial Times FTSE4Good Index, an index series designed to measure the performance of companies demonstrating strong ESG practices.