THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it targets to expedite the integration of the corporate sector into sustainability initiatives.
On Monday, the SEC inaugurated the Sustainable Enterprise Collaboration Network (eSECnature), which seeks to connect corporations, government entities, multilateral organizations, and civil society groups to enhance and broaden corporate involvement in sustainability efforts.
The campaign also seeks to fast-track the country’s attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
“Through this network, we aim to unite organizations both in the public and private sectors to collaborate in developing best practices, new ideas, and successful strategies toward our vision of a sustainable capital market and business sector,” SEC Chairperson Emilio B. Aquino said during the launch event.
“We believe that the adoption of sustainable practices will have a significant impact on improving the state of our capital markets and, more importantly, the economy. As we see more companies comply with environmental, social, and governance standards, we can look forward to the entry of more investments into the country that can further drive our economic growth,” he added.
The eSECnature campaign also strives for digital enablement to reduce the corporate sector’s overall carbon footprint.
Members of the network will also push for collaboration and participation in knowledge-sharing activities and policy advocacy initiatives to help integrate and adopt sustainable practices in their operations.
The members of the network will also work toward ensuring the ethical and responsible conduct of business operations and advocacies, reducing their carbon footprint, and supporting the digitalization, zero-contact, and paperless initiatives of the government.
Meanwhile, the SEC is scheduled to launch five new digital initiatives this week to streamline stakeholders’ transactions in line with the commission’s sustainability efforts.
SEC’s existing digital platforms include the electronic simplified processing of applications for company registration, its subsystem for one-day submission and e-registration of companies, electronic filing and submission tools, and an electronic system for payment to SEC.
These services automated the SEC’s processes in company registration, report submission, and payment of fees.
Other SEC digital initiatives include the electronic SEC universal registration environment, electronic SEC education, analysis and research computing hub, SEC API marketplace, electronic registry application for market participants, and SEC check app 2.0.
“These initiatives are estimated to have reduced the commission’s carbon footprint by over 3,500 tons from 2021 to 2023. In the same period, it was also able to save more than 10,000 trees, equivalent to about 85 million sheets of paper that would have been used in manual transactions,” the SEC said. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
