Like astronaut Neil Armstrong’s legendary declaration of the successful landing on the moon in 1969, “The Eagle has landed,” the 2025-26 nationwide PHYLA Awards came to a close last week, with no less than an outstanding young eagle garnering the plum recognition given by the Rotary Club of Makati for outstanding achievement in the Service Above Self areas of focus of Rotary International.

From a field of over 84 applicants, 10 outstanding nominees, all winners themselves for their noteworthy projects, the list was pruned down to 10 finalists, with the top three finally selected by a panel of esteemed judges last Friday. Emerging on top of the perch is Shawntel Nicole Nieto, an outstanding alumna of Ateneo de Manila University’s undergraduate and graduate programs in Applied Chemistry and Sustainability Management.

Shunning a lucrative career in investment banking after finishing a management training program of JP Morgan, Nicole opted to pursue her lifelong advocacy to uplift Filipinos from the insidious bonds of an unsustainable future brought about by the greed and indifference of many.

With the help of her equally outstanding brothers, collegiate basketball stars Mike and Matt Nieto of Ateneo’s championship teams under coach Tab Baldwin, they started their initial foray into sustainability during the Covid-19 pandemic years with the founding of One Cainta, followed quickly by SustainablePH. But let me not get ahead of myself and let you judge for yourself, in her own words, why Nicole most definitely deserves the accolade.

PHYLA 2026: It’s always been about love

By Shawntel Nicole Nieto

I started the year praying — by the tombs of St. Therese of Lisieux, Padre Pio and St. Benedict, in front of the holy nail used in Jesus’ crucifixion, and through the holy door opened for the Jubilee.

I sought grace for the work that is to come — in the year ahead and all thereafter. As I was praying, one thought kept recurring: it’s not just about what you do, but who you are.

Coincidentally, during the Paing Hechanova Youth Leadership Award (PHYLA) boot camp, one phrase kept getting repeated: Rotary, to Paing, was about love — the love that pushes you to care and to act, and the love you put into and show in everything you do.

It is not just about what you do, but who you are — why you do what you do and what your disposition is as you do it.

This disposition — this other-centered love — is PHYLA’s core. I saw this in my co-finalists, who are all acting not for themselves, but for a cause much greater, and I remind myself of this every day.

At 19, I started my social impact work. Seeing many marginalized communities still not connected to water and electricity grids, I co-founded BMB Solutions and manufactured electricity-generating water filtration bikes.

When the pandemic hit and lockdowns left families worried about how they would get by, my family started the One Cainta food program. We contacted every company we knew, asking them to help us provide food to communities. On the first day of the lockdown, we distributed 500 pieces of bread, 2,000 masks, and 20 boxes of chocolate.

Knowing hunger would not go away even when the pandemic does, we pivoted from gathering donations to overstock food — helping companies manage excess while ensuring constant food supplies for our communities. We also started various education, livelihood, and disaster relief projects.

Thus far, we have reached 700,000 people across 20 cities. However, even so, I knew it was not enough.

It’s not enough because feeding one person today doesn’t solve the fact that they had no access to food in the first place.

This is why I turned to the practice of sustainable development — a way of operating, be it companies or countries, that (1) ensures everyone has access to their needs, (2) prosperity is felt by everyone, especially the marginalized, and (3) the environment is not destroyed as we operate in it.

To bring sustainable development about in the Philippines, I co-founded Sustainability PH. It is a non-profit organization that seeks to transform every Filipino into a sustainability leader, driving change where they are.

Our flagship program, Learn2Lead Sustainability, has trained 120 professionals, enabling them to kick-start sustainability in their organizations. Some notable capstone projects coming from L2LS are Ajinomoto’s plastic recovery system, the foundational system for Home Credit’s decarbonization strategy, and the scaling up of environmental clubs across public schools in Bulacan.

We also design tailor-fit sustainability training for organizations such as Sustainability 101 for Pascual Lab, circular economy workshops for Uratex, and sustainable finance sessions for Sterling Bank; convene the country’s first association of more than 600 sustainability practitioners; and host an annual sustainability summit and awards. This April, our annual summit will be hosted in Iloilo.

At Sustainability PH, we believe no one leader can change this country as we need to, but if we make sustainability leaders out of everyone, then we can.

Until next week… OBF!

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