{"id":72270,"date":"2025-11-21T07:07:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T23:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=72270"},"modified":"2025-11-12T12:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T04:12:08","slug":"ph-business-leaders-increasingly-view-sustainability-as-driver-of-growth-and-competitiveness-says-schneider-electric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2025\/11\/21\/ph-business-leaders-increasingly-view-sustainability-as-driver-of-growth-and-competitiveness-says-schneider-electric\/","title":{"rendered":"PH business leaders increasingly view sustainability as driver of growth and competitiveness, says Schneider Electric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schneider Electric<\/a>, a global energy technology player, announced the results of its annual Green Impact Gap survey revealing that Philippine business leaders increasingly view sustainability as a driver of growth and competitiveness, even as they cite economic uncertainty and geopolitical instability as barriers to further sustainability investment.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ninety seven percent of companies have established sustainability targets. Among them, 58% report that sustainability reporting has become easier over the past year, largely due to technology advancements. Yet, 32% still face challenges, citing factors such as rising costs.<\/p>\n

This year, 55% of company leaders identify innovation and competitiveness as key drivers of sustainability, with the strongest emphasis from the semiconductors (71%) and data centers (60%) sectors, followed by real estate (53%) and healthcare (52%). This underscores how industries increasingly link sustainability with business innovation.<\/p>\n

Sustainability is also delivering tangible business value. This year, 52% of leaders say it creates new business opportunities, up from 42% in 2024. Similarly, 42% pursue sustainability to strengthen brand and reputation, compared with 32% last year, while 46% cite cost savings and financial benefits, up from 43%. These year-on-year gains demonstrate that sustainability has evolved from a peripheral initiative into a core strategy for competitiveness and resilience.<\/p>\n

Misalignment between declared goals and tangible action persists<\/strong><\/p>\n

While findings underscore the growing commitment to sustainability in the Philippines, they also reveal a persistent \u2018Green Impact Gap\u2019 \u2014 the misalignment between companies’ declared sustainability goals and the tangible actions taken to achieve them. This year, 97% of companies set targets, but less than half are taking comprehensive action, keeping the regional Green Impact Gap at 46%.<\/p>\n

With 2025 marking a critical milestone on the path to 2030 climate goals, companies remain optimistic. Around 84% express confidence in meeting or exceeding their 2030 targets, while 20% report being more than three years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies across the Philippines are not just weathering the storm\u2014they\u2019re using sustainability as a compass to navigate it,\u201d said\u00a0Ireen Catane, Country President, Schneider Electric Philippines<\/strong>. \u201cDespite volatile economic conditions, early movers and adopters are turning to digitalization and AI to drive efficiency, mitigate risk, and create lasting value.\u201d<\/p>\n

In parallel, two-thirds of companies (66%) report being very or moderately familiar with Republic Act 11285, the Philippines’ Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act. Among these, 85% express moderate to high confidence in meeting its requirements, signaling readiness to implement concrete energy-efficiency measures. This trend aligns with the DOE’s national efforts to promote energy efficiency, supporting businesses and local governments in optimizing energy use while advancing sustainability goals.<\/p>\n

AI unlocks cost savings and energy efficiency<\/strong><\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is helping companies address financial and energy risks. 92% of companies in the Philippines this year are already applying or interested to apply AI to advance their sustainability ambitions. At 59%, AI for energy consumption optimization now tops the list of energy and resource efficiency applications, rising ahead of waste management (50%) and smart building management and automation (49%).<\/p>\n

Companies see AI\u2019s biggest impact on sustainability in automating data collection and reporting (51%), optimizing energy use (44%), and enhancing product design (44%). By improving energy efficiency, AI helps mitigate cost risks, aligning with the 46% of company leaders who cite financial benefits and savings as key drivers for sustainability amid persistent energy price concerns.<\/p>\n

With the rise of energy demand in the Philippines, which the Department of Energy (DOE) projects will grow 4\u20135% annually and potentially double total power consumption by 2040 under the Philippine Energy Plan, companies continued to adjust their decarbonization strategies in 2025. The most widely adopted measures were switching to low-carbon or electric vehicles for transport (27%, up from 25%), and investing in research and development to drive innovation in low carbon technologies (27%, up from 25%).<\/p>\n

From 2024 to 2025, companies advanced in cutting Scope 2 emissions\u2014indirect emissions from purchased energy such as electricity, steam, heating, and cooling\u2014through onsite renewables (34%, up from 29%) and energy-efficient equipment (41%, unchanged). They also adopted emerging measures like Green IT plans (31%). Efforts to reduce Scope 3, or value chain, emissions also grew, with gains in supply chain optimization (33%, up from 29%) and in promoting remote work and video conferencing to cut commuting and travel-related emissions (31%, up from 30%).<\/p>\n

Investments hold steady despite economic uncertainty<\/strong><\/p>\n

With business leaders seeing the bottom-line benefit of sustainability, planned investment in sustainability transformation has held steady with 23% of companies planning to invest at least $US1 million over the next two years.<\/p>\n

While investment in sustainability continues to face key limiters, most have eased slightly year-on-year. Economic uncertainty remains the top concern but dropped from 49% in 2024 to 45% in 2025. Internal budgetary constraints show a sharper decline, from 48% to 37%, while regulatory and policy difficulties (37% to 35%) and poor incentives (36% to 35%) also decreased marginally. These shifts suggest that while structural and financial challenges remain, the investment landscape in 2025 has become relatively more favorable for corporate sustainability compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n

Now in its third year, the Schneider Electric Green Impact Gap survey, conducted with Milieu Insight, gathers insights from 4,500 middle- to senior-level executives across nine Asian markets\u2014Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam\u2014on how businesses are prioritizing and investing in sustainability through a 30-question assessment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ninety seven percent of companies have established sustainability targets. Among them, 58% report that sustainability reporting has become easier over the past year, largely due to technology advancements. Yet, 32% still face challenges, citing factors such as rising costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":72271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[7858,729,5972,96],"class_list":["post-72270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-green-technology","tag-schneider-electric","tag-sustainability","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72272,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72270\/revisions\/72272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}