"Our positive result was no accident nor was it achieved overnight. It was the product of years of planning, careful execution, and hard work.” — Lucio Tan
This might be the secret behind the LT Group’s success not just in their businesses, but also in their sustainability over the years. Being in the industry for eight decades, the company surely knows how to give back with its advocacies and campaigns to protect the environment.
LT Group makes sure that the companies under it consistently review its operations, looking for ways on how they can contribute and “minimize the impact on the environment, to ensure that its needs are met without compromising the needs of future generations.”
Asia Brewery, Inc.
Instead of using newly-made glasses, ABI opted for cullet, recycled, broken or waste glass, in producing their glass bottles. In 2018, the company used 72.2 thousand megatons of cullet, accounting for 61% of the raw materials used.
Another material used in manufacturing bottles is lahar, which comes from the 1990 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. Last 2018, about 56% of the feldspar used in glass manufacturing was replaced by lahar, equivalent to 3.5 thousand metric tons.
Asia Brewery also makes sure that nothing will be wasted and thrown, even powdered glass wastes, which are used in concretes the company utilized in their pavements and walkways within the Cabuyao, Laguna plant premises.
Among the sustainable projects of the ABI is its regular tree-planting activities, which started in 2016. Its mission is to plant one million trees a year, with a cumulative target of 8.4 million trees planted by 2020 in Sta. Cruz, Ilocos Sur. With the help of local farmers, the company can plant fuelwood species for traceability and sustainability of wood for curing tobacco.
Philippine National Bank
One of the policies that PNB implements in its head office is reducing its energy and water consumption. Replacing the 20-year-old cooling coils of their air-handling units and old conventional bulb and tube lights with light-emitting diodes and upgrading their chillers—these efforts resulted in savings of P10.6 million per year.
Tanduay Distillers, Inc.
The diversified beverage company of the LT Group, Inc., Tanduay Distillers, Inc., puts into action efforts on how its operations can help protect the environment.
Absolute Distillers operates a 100 Kilo Liters per Day bioethanol plant in Lian, Batangas. It sold 36.3 million liters of bioethanol in 2018 and also operates a 2 MW solar power plant in Lian Batangas. In 2018, it generated 2.4 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity.
Asian Alcohol, in its plant in Pulupdan, Negros Occidental, produces biogas from distillery slops that are pumped from the equalization pond into anaerobic digesters to biodegrade. The biogas produced by the digesters is then fed to the boiler, which displaces bunker fuel consumption. From July 2017 to the end of 2018, 650,000 liters of bunker fuel were replaced by biogas.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Meanwhile, as part of its corporate social responsibility, LT Group founded the Lucio C. Tan Legacy Forest Project. Established in 2014, the advocacy has contributed to the reforestation efforts of the government, with hundreds of hectares being planted and providing jobs for the indigenous people. More than that, the project also opened more opportunities for them that teach livelihood training on proper ways of producing vegetables and ornamental plants.
Before 2019 ended, together with Allianz PNB Life Insurance Inc., the company launched the Green Canopy Project, spearheaded by Lucio Tan III, which aimed to plant 12 million trees, along the Sierra Madre mountains in Luzon.