PLDT Inc. (PLDT) and Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) recently held their inaugural sustainability forum for their suppliers to strengthen alignment on environmental, social, and governance practices (ESG) and to underscore their commitment to doing business responsibly.
Engaging local and foreign tier-one suppliers and business partners that accounted for over 55% of their 2023 spend, PLDT and Smart tackled fundamentals of their sustainability roadmap and featured interactive discussions about key practices aligned with their ESG materiality landscape, including corporate governance, cybersecurity, data privacy, business continuity and resilience, environment, and occupational health and safety.
During the forum, PLDT and Smart Chief Sustainability Officer Melissa Vergel de Dios shared how the group identifies sustainability as a key driver of business strategy, defining it as “ensuring long-term profitability by doing business responsibly”.
“For PLDT and Smart, sustainability is no longer a “nice-to-have”; it’s already included in our ways of working, in our digital transformation and innovation, and as part of elevating customer experience,” she added.
To promote adoption of sustainable practices in the supply chain, PLDT and Smart include ESG provisions as part of standards that suppliers conform with upon qualification and onboarding.
PLDT, Smart, and their suppliers pledge their commitment to uphold the company’s Supplier Code of Conduct during the forum held in Makati City.
At the forum, participating suppliers and business partners were also asked to reaffirm their commitment to abide by the PLDT Group’s Supplier Code of Conduct. This establishes how suppliers must operate to align with PLDT and Smart’s principles on environmental management, human rights, data privacy and cybersecurity, responsible operations, and business ethics.
The forum also included a discussion on PLDT and Smart’s direction to align further with global best practices on supplier management, which entail integrating ESG requirements into the entire process of supplier management, including screening, due diligence, qualification, audit, and performance monitoring.
PLDT and Smart aim to continue expanding this alignment on ESG with the rest of their suppliers and business partners, including those who are micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises or MSMEs.
“Sustainability is not just about compliance. It’s not something we’re doing because we’re mandated to do. This goes beyond compliance; this should be our way of life. It’s something that we truly believe in so that we can leave behind a sustainable planet for the future generation,” said PLDT First Vice President and Supply Chain Management Head Andrew Atienza
Embedding sustainability in the supply chain underscores PLDT and Smart’s efforts to 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.
