SINGAPORE & MANILA– Asia’s leading Environmental, Social, and Governance (‘ESG’) data and technology solutions company, ESGpedia Pte Ltd (‘ESGpedia’), has joined the Sustainable Practices and Reporting Kickoff (‘SPARK’) program to support sustainability reporting among Filipino small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and drive its adoption. With that, ESGpedia has digitally integrated the SPARK reporting template (SPARK Template) onto its ESG reporting platform and ran a series of workshops with SMEs under the Philippines Department of Trade & Industry (‘DTI’) network.
As part of a wider collaboration between GRI ASEAN and the DTI, the SPARK program aims to foster sustainable business practices by SMEs in the Philippines, exploring the impacts of business activities on the economy, environment, and society, and how these factors relate to resilient business operations.
The SPARK Template aims to help provide Filipino SMEs with a streamlined and standardized set of guidelines in relation to ESG disclosures, aligned with the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for publicly-listed companies, released by the Securities and Exchange Commission (‘SEC’).
The digitalized SPARK Template tool on ESGpedia will be in the form of a digital assessment, equipped with guidance notes to provide SMEs additional information on the requirements of the disclosure.
Filipino SMEs can use ESGpedia platform’s embedded carbon calculator in accordance with GHG Protocol and ISO14064 methodologies to attain an automated carbon calculation and greater insights into their GHG emissions.
This enables Filipino SMEs to leverage digitalization to easily kickstart their ESG reporting journey in accordance with their local reporting requirements, scalable to international frameworks, and future-proof against rising ESG regulations globally.
Emma C. Asusano, director of the DTI Bureau of Small and Medium Enterprise Development, said: “As Filipino SMEs adopt sustainable practices, the SPARK Template on the ESGpedia platform enhances transparency and simplifies ESG reporting. This integration boosts access to sustainable financing, attracts responsible investors, and strengthens SMEs’ resilience and competitiveness, aligning them with global standards and advancing the country’s sustainable development goals.”
Katreena Pillejera, country manager for the Philippines, GRI ASEAN, said: “As GRI and DTI advance on our 5-year collaboration, we realize the need to harness the power of technology to make the lives of SMEs even easier when it comes to sustainability reporting. Bringing the SAFE Initiative, as powered by ESGpedia, into the SPARK pilot program not only provides a technological option for SMEs but also for DTI, to analyze data at the tip of their fingers. The pilot sessions ran with ESGpedia were positively welcomed by the SMEs; hence, we look forward to the possibility of having the SPARK template fully integrated into the GRI-DTI collaboration in the future.”
Benjamin Soh, Founder and managing director at ESGpedia, said: “Digital enablement is key to helping SMEs embrace sustainability and maintain competitiveness amidst rising demand and regulations. As part of our broader commitment to empowering sustainability in the Asia Pacific region through the SAFE Initiative, we are delighted to be collaborating with GRI ASEAN and the Philippines Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), to streamline ESG reporting for Filipino SMEs through the digitalization of the SPARK Template on ESGpedia.”
ESGpedia is the official technology platform partner for the Single Accesspoint for ESG (‘SAFE’) initiative, which aims to close data and disclosure gaps in the Asia Pacific region. The SAFE Initiative complements GRI’s partnership with the Sustainable Finance Institute Asia (‘SFIA’) through the GRI Sustainability Innovation Lab. ESGpedia is also a GRI-licensed platform.
The latest integration of the SPARK Template on ESGpedia aims to test the usefulness of the digitalized SPARK Template for SMEs. Based on a survey conducted at the recently concluded workshop series on digital reporting, 67% of SMEs agreed that the digitalized SPARK Template on the ESGpedia is easy to use (33% strongly agreed), with 58% strongly agreeing that technology helps ease business processes relating to sustainability reporting. Additionally, 100% of the respondents opted to use ESGpedia for the digitalized SPARK Template, rather than the original format via Excel.
With presence across the Asia Pacific, ESGpedia empowers corporates, SMEs, and the financial sector towards ESG reporting in accordance with international and country-specific frameworks such as the ISSB, GRI, PCAF, SEDG, SuRe Form, and more.
