PLDT Inc. (PLDT) and its wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) continue to reinforce environmental, social, and governance (ESG) best practices among their partners and suppliers. In a sustainability forum held in Makati City, Chief Sustainability Officer Melissa V. Vergel de Dios presented PLDT and Smart’s sustainability roadmap to a new batch of local and international tier-one suppliers and business partners, following the inaugural forum held in August. Targeting to cover majority of the supply chain base annually, this engagement already accounts for over 60% of the telcos’ 2023 spend to date.
The participants also included members of PLDT and Smart’s supply chain and product development teams that regularly engage with suppliers and contribute to various ESG initiatives within the value chain.
Vergel de Dios underscored continuous measures to align with global best practices, specifically: enforcing the PLDT Group Supplier Code of Conduct, identifying suppliers’ roles in the telcos’ ESG program, and enhancing due diligence as part of supply chain engagements. These are aimed at ensuring supplier alignment with PLDT and Smart’s principles on environmental management, human rights, data privacy and cybersecurity, responsible operations, business continuity and business ethics, among others.
“Our suppliers are key partners for sustainability. We have to ensure that we continue to integrate sustainability in our business engagements, align our expectations for partners with our ESG standards, and pursue areas of collaboration on solutions and adoption of sustainable business practices,” said Vergel de Dios.
The sustainability forum featured sessions aligned with the PLDT and Smart ESG materiality landscape in the areas of corporate governance, cybersecurity and data privacy, business continuity and resilience, environment, and occupational health and safety.
“We are grateful for the response of our suppliers to our call to engage and work together towards a sustainable future and we look forward to a long and productive relationship,” said Andrew Atienza, First Vice President and Group Head – Supply Chain Management at PLDT and Smart.
Committed to the highest standards of business ethics, PLDT and Smart aim to continue expanding this alignment on ESG with the rest of their suppliers and business partners, including micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises or MSMEs.
Embedding sustainability in the supply chain underscores PLDT and Smart’s efforts to integrate sustainability across the group’s business operations, and contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), particularly UN SDG No. 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, UN SDG No. 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and UN SDG No. 17 Partnerships for the Goals.
