Powering the Good Life
Our mission is to ensure that electricity continually flows from our grid to our customers—to light up homes and offices, to power industries, and to energize our economy—today and for generations to come. We have therefore placed sustainability at the heart of Meralco, allowing us to better empower our people, protect our environment, and foster growth for a prosperous nation.
One for Trees
We aim to protect and preserve Philippine forests and watersheds by planting and nurturing 5 million trees by 2025.
Green Mobility
We will electrify 100% of our Metro Manila Business Centers’ vehicle fleet beginning 2021.
Ester Oil
Transformers
We use only natural ester oil in 100% of our new distribution transformers, making them 99% biodegradable and recyclable.
#Mbrace:
Gender Diversity
We promote a gender-balanced and inclusive workplace. Today, Meralco has almost 3x more women in its organization versus the global average in the energy sector.
Through the Meralco Electrification Program (MEP), we lit up 11,354 households in 2020, leading to 99.94% electrification of our service area. We also expanded our microgrid system in Cagbalete Island by building 1.4 MW of additional solar PV and 2.4 MWh of battery storage capacity—enough to power the entire island. Going forward, MEP targets to energize the remaining priority sites to bring us even closer to achieving 100% household electrification.
In 2020, Spectrum partnered with City of Dreams to install a 1.2-MW solar PV energy system (3,120 solar panels) on the rooftop of its parking building. The first and largest solar installation for an Integrated Resort Hotel in Metro Manila, the project will reduce carbon emissions by over 1,000 tonnes of CO2e annually.
We also continue to find ways to power isolated communities in dire need of energy access. The first beneficiaries of our microgrid solutions were Isla Verde, with a 32-kWp solar PV and 192-kWh battery energy storage system (BESS), and Cagbalete Island, with a 32-kWp solar PV and 192-kWh BESS. We are now working toward building larger-scale microgrids, with the goal of lighting up the remaining communities on both islands.
We fully support the Department of Energy’s Renewable Portfolio Standards and have thus committed to securing 1,500 MW of our power requirements from renewable energy sources in the next five years. We are likewise accelerating our renewable energy build-out plan of up to 1,500 MW of clean energy capacity in the next 5–7 years. MGreen’s maiden project, BulacanSol, a 50-MW solar farm, began operations in May 2021. In addition, Global Business Power’s (GBP) first solar power plant with 115-MW peak capacity in Rizal will go online in 2022.
We now use natural plant-based ester oil (instead of mineral oil) in our distribution transformers (DTs). To date, 100% of our pad-mounted DTs already use ester oil. Moving forward, 100% of our new DTs (including pole-mounted) will use this earth-friendly material, making our DTs 99% biodegradable and recyclable.
Through One for Trees, our carbon sink program launched in 2019, we live out our commitment to environmental sustainability and preservation of Philippine biodiversity. By planting and nurturing 5 million trees by 2025, we seek to revive and rehabilitate damaged and threatened forests and watersheds, while providing a sustainable stream of income to communities through agroforestry. As of May 2021, we have already planted 1,807,221 trees.
We aim to electrify our vehicle fleet through our Green Mobility Program. In addition to our current deployment of 59 eMotorcycles, we are looking to roll out nearly 70 electric vehicles (EVs) consisting of electric cars, vans, and pick-ups and additional eMotorcycles across our business centers (BCs) and sector offices beginning 2021. This will lead to 100% electrification of our Metro Manila BC vehicles and 6% of our entire fleet.
Through our Race to Zero Waste (RZW) Program, we aim to minimize our waste and divert them waste away from landfills. Our Ban on Single-Use Plastics (SUPs) covers all our offices and facilities (including those of our subsidiaries) and our partners in the supply chain. In just one year, we collectively avoided over 150,000 kg of SUPs, equivalent to 15M plastic bottles. We also implemented #HealthWithoutHarm to ensure the safe and responsible disposal of Covid-19 waste through the provision of yellow bins across all our facilities and the safe transport of waste to treatment centers.
We promote a gender-balanced and inclusive workplace with 31.7% of our workforce comprised of women, significantly higher than the global energy sector average of 11%. In 2020, we became among the first Filipino companies—and the only one from the energy sector—to sign the United Nations’ Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). Our Gender Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Program called #Mbrace aims to embed the WEPs in our strategy and operations.
CODE (Care Operations for Disasters and Emergencies) Light Bot is a chatbot that provides a bird’s eye view of our employees’ daily health and work status. It also gives us access to important air quality data such as indoor and outdoor temperatures, humidity, and particulate matter, gathered through air quality sensors across our office headquarters.
Our Orange Fit Program ensures the overall wellness of our workforce. To enhance physical fitness, we encourage our employees to use our gyms and sports facilities and partake in employee sports, hobby and interest clubs, and group exercise classes. To nurture their emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being, we offer meditation guides and prayers, share guidelines on work productivity (Mindful Meetings) and personal space (ME Time), and provide access to in-house counsellors and medical experts.
Our Bright Ideas and Orange Tag programs empower our customers by helping them make informed choices in managing their own energy consumption. Bright Ideas is a customer information drive that provides knowledge and tips on saving energy. Orange Tag is a label that shows the estimated cost per use of appliances.
We elevate the customer experience through digital innovations like the Virtual Customer Assistant (VCA), which allows customers to speak to a Meralco customer care representative via video conferencing. With VCAs, we are able to attend to more customers and process more transactions and queries. Since June 2020, a total of 92 VCAs have been deployed across 56 collecting offices.
One of the ways we uplift communities is through One Meralco’s Foundation’s School Electrification Program. Since 2011, we have brought sparks of joy to 260 off-grid public schools through solar energy. We have also empowered over 83,000 students and 2,600 teachers with digital learning and teaching tools.
Through our Meralco Supplier Sustainability Scorecard (MS3), we champion sustainability principles throughout our business network and ensure supplier adoption and adherence to our sustainability standards. MS3 assesses vendors on key sustainability criteria and disclosures aligned with the UN SDGs and patterned after the GRI Standards as part of their continuing accreditation with Meralco.
Our sustainability agenda
Our sustainability agenda, Powering the Good Life, is rooted in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). It is marked by a distinctive focus on four strategic pillars: Power, Planet, People, and Prosperity.
Contribution to the UN SDGs
Meralco supports the Sustainable Development Goals
As a major player in the Philippine energy industry, we are uniquely positioned to contribute to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. However, through our other business and initiatives, we also promote and support up to 11 other SDGs.