Consortium aims to combat 'greenwashing'

The Star

Strict measures have been locked into the Asia ESG Positive Impact Consortium (A-EPIC) project to ensure firm delivery of environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, said Star Media Group chief business officer Lydia Wang.  During a joint press conference following the launch of the A-EPIC project on Friday (June 21), KG Media chief executive officer Andy Budiman highlighted that the consortium's success would be measured by its regional impact on achieving ESG goals.   Additionally, Philippine Daily Inquirer president and chief executive officer Rudyard Arbolado emphasised the use of various screening methods to prevent greenwashing attempts.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00Besides the award where we will have professionals on board with us to look at and filter the

00:11criteria and so forth, at the journalistic level, just this very morning, we were talking

00:17about how can we ensure that we don't inevitably promote greenwashing, right, because it's

00:25very dangerous.

00:26We may not, we have so many journalists running around doing these stories.

00:31So one of the ways was there's a training that's going on to train journalists on how

00:38to spot greenwashing stories, how do we do the research and make sure that we have integrity

00:46in our stories.

00:47And the second conversation that we were going to leverage on KG Media's expertise is research.

00:54Can we talk about cross-country research to find out the metrics of where other companies

01:04and also the consumers?

01:06So it's very interesting, right?

01:08Firstly, what is the acceptance of a consumer towards or how important they think ESG is?

01:15And then at the corporate level, they may figure that they have done a lot, but maybe

01:21not.

01:22So henceforth, the research.

01:24There are also built-in safeguards in the way we will hold the APIC awards.

01:32First there's the, we have a list of categories now.

01:35So the categories are very specific.

01:38Second, Lydia mentioned that what we aim for are to recognize efforts that are the best

01:46in class.

01:47So I think that's another form of safeguard.

01:50And then third probably is that there are basically two types of screenings, a screening

01:56done in each of the countries, member countries, and another one at the regional awards.

02:03So that would again, I think, provide a safeguard against fears of greenwashing.

02:11At the end of the day, what matters is impact, how the initiative impacts the society.

02:18So that's why it's Asia ESG Positive Impact Consortium.

02:23The measurable KPI for success of our consortium should be how does ESG initiatives across

02:32the Asia-Pacific actually have positive impacts on the region.

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