MANILA, Philippines - One of the country’s largest leading banks, Banco de Oro, has embarked on a series of environmental awareness programs for its employees and various stakeholders to ensure that they take the issues on global climate change and rising cost of electricity to heart. First to be launched in December was the Kuryentipid seminars, a hugely successful event voluntarily participated in by hundreds of BDO employees who were treated to tips on reducing energy consumption and a beneficial reduction in power bills conducted by electric experts from no less than Manila Electric Company.
Similarly, BDO launched its “Go Green Program” at the jampacked Francisco Santiago Hall at the South Tower of the BDO Corporate Center in Makati, where two astute energy resource persons spoke to employees about climate change and global warming. The resource speakers in said seminar were: former Energy Secretary Vince Perez and Agnes de Jesus of the state-owned Energy Development Corp. who talked about the Philippines’ response to climate change. The Go Green Program, attended by 500 employees of BDO who volunteered their time and energy to listen to the speakers, aptly defines the determination of BDO employees to take environmental concerns seriously to reduce the contribution to this global aberration.
This program was launched after intense preparations and planning by the BDO Core Green Team chaired by Eduardo V. Francisco, EVP and President of BDO Capital and Investment Banking with team members: Maureen Abelardo, BDO Foundation; Rose Espinosa, HRM-Internal Corporate Programs; Maite Flores, risk analytics; Rene Onate, BDO Leasing and Finance; Rodolfo Carlos and Jesus Manego of Credit Risk Control and Jean Ibuna, Richie de Guzman both of Marketing Communications Group.
In the Kuryentipid seminar, speakers, Edwin Santillan and Marvin Bathan Bathan took turns in providing useful information and practical tips on energy savings for the office and home as Santillan gave an overview on energy efficiency and its benefits, identifying the typical energy wasters and gave insights on the computation of electrical consumption using the kilowatt-hour (kWh) as a unit of energy while Bathan gave helpful energy efficiency tips for various electrical appliances and equipment. The session ended with an open forum, with active participation from the audience.