Members of the Net Zero Carbon Alliance (NZCA) were given a tour of the geothermal power plants of the Energy Development Corporation in Valencia, Negros Oriental on Thursday (July 27, 2023). The participants attended on Friday (July 28) a hybrid and internal quarterly meeting at its partner, Silliman University in Dumaguete City, a campus that boasts 100 percent renewable energy use.
Some 20 private sector members of the Net Zero Carbon Alliance (NZCA) on Friday vowed to work together to attain carbon neutrality by 2050 by using a portal that will track the performance of each partner based on their carbon emissions and to fight the growing climate change threat.
"Today, we took our partners a step closer to their carbon neutrality by discussing how we can all avoid greenwashing by learning the difference and requirements on being carbon neutral and going net zero," Frances Ariola, concurrent lead convenor of NZCA told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
"In the meeting today, we worked on the collective accomplishments by the partners. To be able to do that, we have a tracker or portal to track the performance of each partner based on their carbon emission and we are learning how to compute our carbon footprint through the carbon calculator that we have exclusive for NZCA partners only," Ariola said.
The portal is a platform to compute the group members' carbon footprint or the total amount of greenhouse gases generated by their actions and to track their progress to reduce their emissions based on the NZCA framework.
It is difficult to quantify each partner's accomplishments to reduce carbon emissions because of the different strategies being adopted, such as mangrove planting and the use of or shift to renewable energy, she added.
The NCZA is a pioneering multisectoral consortium seeking to achieve collective carbon neutrality beginning in the Philippine private sector, Ariola, concurrent Corporate Communications head of renewable energy leader, Energy Development Corporation (EDC), earlier said in a statement.
NZCA was conceived and established in 2021 by geothermal energy producer EDC to encourage and support as many Philippine enterprises as possible to commit to attaining net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or carbon neutrality by 2050, she added.
NZCA assemblies are held every quarter for its partners to discuss best practices related to each component of the NZCA framework for carbon neutrality that centers on reducing carbon emissions and offsetting residual carbon emissions that can no longer be removed.
Silliman University, one of its pioneer partners, boasts of its best practices in sustainability and decarbonization, such as being the leading sustainable university that is 100 percent powered by renewable energy, Ariola said. (PNA)
Originally published on pna.gov.ph
