Can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability or other environmentally-friendly activities?

ACEN aims to be the leader in energy transition and has committed to building 20 GW of renewable energy projects by 2030, towards its goal of Net Zero GHG emissions by 2050. It currently has 98% attributable capacity from renewable energy technologies. Our key objectives are: (1) continue to grow in the Philippines and expand our global footprint, (2) focus on scaling up renewables utilising new technologies, and (3) leverage strategic partnerships to complement internal capabilities. From 2019 to 2022, the group issued $1.75bn worth of green bonds which were deployed for our renewable energy projects.

ACEN is cognisant that it is not sufficient to just build renewable energy capacity; there is a need to decommission its non-renewable portfolio to reach net zero emissions. Towards this end, in 2022, ACEN has completed the first ever market-based energy transition mechanism (ETM) for the early retirement of a 246MW coal plant. Through this ETM: (1) the useful life of the plant will be cut in half, saving up to 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and (2) the proceeds to the company, in the amount of USD133 million, will enable construction of a 600MW solar plant. The ETM is a concept developed by the Asian Development Bank, which aims to leverage low-cost and long-term funding geared towards early coal retirement and the reinvestment of proceeds to enable renewable energy projects. The company’s ETM is unique as it did not use any concessional funding, but instead relied on the domestic private sector financing.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?

In-house lawyers are in a unique position in that they must navigate with a holistic perspective of the company, working across business operations, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder and government relations to resolve issues. Having this interdisciplinary exposure gives us an ideal platform with which to influence these various aspects of the organisation. Furthermore, the role of in-house lawyers has evolved from simply advising on the law to providing critical inputs on strategy. Our presence from inception of the project to completion and beyond gives us a balanced perspective of how change can be properly implemented.

It can be difficult to truly measure a company’s track record and accomplishments in terms of their environmentally-friendly behaviour. What do you think has, until now, been mostly missed when discussing how green a company is?

It’s important that discussions also take into account how a company is labelling itself as green. If a company is merely passing the GHG emissions problem via divestment of its thermal assets to another owner, who may not be as transparent or responsible in managing GHG emissions, it does not do any service to combat climate change. Green companies should ensure a proper divestment of their thermal assets with the goal of retiring said assets within a well-defined period and creating significant savings in GHG emissions.