Pilipinas Shell supports conference on environmental business practices

Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. supports the groundbreaking conference on Green Productivity, Green Purchasing for a Green Philippines (GP3) at the Hotel Dusit in Makati City on Oct. 23 and 24, 2006.

Green productivity is defined as manufacturing using environment-responsive materials and processes and is increasingly being practiced by the world’s biggest manufacturers.

The GP3 conference-workshops-exhibit is a program of the National Ecolabelling Program of the Philippines called Green Choice Philippines based on ISO14024. It is a joint project of the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and administered by the Clean & Green Foundation, an environmental non-government organization.

Clean & Green Foundation chairperson and former First Lady Amelita M. Ramos hopes that the conference will give the impetus to local industries to adopt green productivity and institutional buyers to implement green procurement as business practices.

"Both programs make perfect business sense as they not only lower production costs but are the best ways to practice for sustainability," Ramos said.

International experts who helped implement ecolabelling programs in most progressive countries in the world are invited to lecture the country’s top manufacturers on green productivity and institutionalized buyers on green purchasing.

South Korean Kun Mo-Lee will conduct lectures and workshops on integrating environmental aspects into product design and development using Life Cycle Assessments (ISO 14040 series) and Design for Environment (ISO/TR 14062). Dr. Lee is Asia Pacific’s foremost expert on Green Productivity and has received numerous awards, licenses and patents for his projects.

Canada’s TerraChoice Marketing chairperson John Polak shall lecture on turning environmental investment into a market advantage through design and program management. He is Canada’s representative in a number of inter-governmental organizations such as the United Nations Environment Program and the International Standards Organization and was instrumental in organizing the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN).

On the Green Purchasing aspect, institutional buyers such as government offices, banks, malls, restaurants, schools, hotels and others are also expected to attend the conference.

American Scot Case will deliver a lecture on environmentally preferable purchasing in the conference. He conducts environmental purchasing training sessions to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the World Bank, Microsoft, Starbucks, Hewlett Packard and others.

Former DENR secretary Elisea Gozun is GP3 moderator while Japanese Ambassador to Manila Ryu Yamazaki is a keynote address speaker.

"We are glad that a former environment secretary has accepted the task of moderator of the conference and we are doubly happy that the Japanese Ambassador shall be able to share the practices of the world’s leading country in the implementation of green productivity and green procurement," Ramos said.

She added that the Japanese government even has a law that mandates the government to buy environmentally manufactured products. "We wish the government to lead the way in green productivity and green procurement. The conference is our way of sharing the competencies and the impetus to finally get the program rolling," she explains.

Confirmed attendees include Pilipinas Shell, Chowking Foods Corp., Toyota Motors Philippines, Brent International School, Unilever, SM Malls, national agencies, local government units and many others.

The fee is pegged at P6,000 for the two-day conference. Registration is still ongoing at the Clean & Green Foundation. Call 5276376 and 5276378 for more details.