Daily TribuneAboitiz Group is connecting its units into a single business ecosystem where resources, capabilities and partnerships work together to create greater value.
Aboitiz Equity Ventures chief reputation and sustainability officer Ginggay Hontiveros-Malvar discusses the Group’s ecosystem approach to advancing circular economy principles across its portfolio at the 2026 Philippine Sustainability Now Forum.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GINGGAY HONTIVEROS-MALVAR
Aboitiz Group sees circularity not simply as an environmental initiative, but as a business strategy that strengthens resilience while creating long-term value.
“The future of circularity is not about building more recycling facilities. It is about building better business connections,” Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV) chief reputation and sustainability officer Ginggay Hontiveros-Malvar said during the 2026 Philippine Sustainability Now Forum organized by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Makati City.
The strategy, according to Hontiveros-Malvar, has made AEV among the top three Philippine conglomerates in the 2025 S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment, reflecting the Group’s performance across environmental, social and governance dimensions.
Across its portfolio, Aboitiz Group is already closing resource loops. Aboitiz Foods and Coca-Cola Europacific Aboitiz Philippines (CCEAP) are redesigning packaging and expanding recovery systems that have diverted more than 3,600 tons of plastic waste since the implementation of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law in 2023. The EPR law requires large companies to recover and divert a significant portion of their plastic packaging waste.
Recovered PET bottles under CCEAP’s “Tapon to Ipon” campaign are processed by PETValue Philippines into food-grade recycled resin used to manufacture new beverage bottles, reaching a milestone of one billion recycled bottles in 2024. Materials that cannot be recycled back into bottles—including caps and labels—are then supplied to Republic Cement, where they are co-processed as alternative fuel, diverting more than 1.5 million metric tons of residual plastic waste from landfills while reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
The same systems thinking extends across the rest of the Group. At Aboitiz InfraCapital’s LIMA Estate, subsidiary LIMA Water Corporation runs sewage treatment and a greywater recycling facility that repurposes treated wastewater for nonpotable uses, such as irrigating plants within the estate. This reduces freshwater demand and supports landscaping and biodiversity enhancement around the Sustainability Hub and wider estate grounds.
A dedicated composting facility converts up to one ton of food waste into around 100 kilograms of nutrientrich compost in 24 hours, which is then used in the estate’s plant nursery and green spaces. Materials recovery systems and ecomaterial production are part of the LIMA Sustainability Hub, where waste is sorted and recovered rather than sent directly to landfill, turning residuals into usable inputs for landscaping and other estate needs.
The estate’s 30-hectare central business district uses about 63 percent offsite renewable energy (RE), and building rooftops across LIMA Estate have enough footprint to host solar PV systems capable of generating roughly 21.5 megawatts. This renewable integration supports decarbonization targets and underpins LIMA Estate’s recognition as a smart and sustainable industrialanchored estate, including its five-star BERDE district certification.
Meanwhile, AboitizPower is creating value from industrial by-products while expanding RE capacity. UnionBank is reducing resource consumption through digital banking and helping finance sustainable investments. Together, these initiatives demonstrate how businesses can create greater value by sharing resources rather than operating in isolation.
“As the Philippines’ first techglomerate and as a diversified portfolio of businesses, we are creating value and helping industries become more sustainable by connecting businesses into one circular ecosystem,” Hontiveros-Malvar said.
With these initiatives demonstrating how circularity can create value in practice, the next step for the Aboitiz Group is to connect them into a single business ecosystem where resources, capabilities and partnerships work together to create greater value.
“For Aboitiz, our greatest opportunity is to transform from a collection of sustainable businesses into a truly circular business ecosystem,” Hontiveros-Malvar said.
