Editor’s Desk
Hello, {{First Name | reader}},
Greetings from Davao! Today, Sustina Executive Director Anna Reyes is speaking and mentoring at Circulab, a 24-month venture building accelerator designed to turn circular economy ideas into real businesses. 📣
We’ve seen an increase lately in ecosystem builders and programs like Circulab that are training businesses to adopt circular practices—a sign that institutions with capital are taking the Philippines' circular economy seriously. Investments are moving in and all that remains to be seen is how much they pay off.
On that note, Sustina's Circular Solutions Map is now open for applications.❗This interactive, story-driven platform requires us to build a new database of circular businesses and projects; the project recently won the Climate Culture Journalism Innovation Grant by climateXchange, presented by Syli UK and the World Association of News Publishers 🏆 and it’s launching by the end of 2026.
If your organization designs out trash or decreases the carbon footprint of local supply chains in a real and measurable way, we want you on this map. Full details on how to apply are here.
We hope you’re starting the month right. June is special, both Pride and Environment Month. 🌿 Happy Pride 🏳️🌈 from all of us at Team Sustina! As Marsha P. Johnson, pioneer of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, said: "No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us." That includes the theys, the trees, and the gays.
More soon!
— The Editors
Open Call for Sustina's Circular Solutions Map
Are you leading an organization that tries to design out waste and create more sustainable supply chains? Sustina is opening applications for its Circular Solutions Map, in the areas of textile and fashion, food, plastics, electronic waste, and more.
Is the race for renewable energy outpacing the communities in its path?
“If you want to decolonize the narrative, the conversations [around the climate crisis], we have to go down. We have to ask communities what the energy transition means for them."
Conservationist Rebecca Cangayda-Tandug says renewable energy projects are threatening conservation efforts on the ground. She cites the Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park (NPPNP), a 12,000-hectare protected area in Aklan and Antique, where locals criticize a hydropowered plant proposed by San Miguel Corporation.
Here are 6 lost, and now found, species that remind us why conservation matters
The Philippines belongs to the top five biodiversity hotspots in the world, with the greatest concentration of unique species per unit area in the world, according to the national Biodiversity Management Bureau.
But with so many of those species under threat, many of them have been lost; when the conditions are right, sometimes they are rediscovered.
In Ilocos Norte, fisherfolk raise concerns about becoming a ‘renewable energy capital’
Ilocos Norte, the northwestern tip of the Philippines and hometown of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is undergoing a radical transformation. Fossil fuels currently dominate the local energy mix, with coal alone accounting for roughly two-thirds of power generation as of 2024. But the government has committed to reaching 50% renewables by 2050.
However, local fishing and Indigenous communities see these projects as threats to their livelihoods, saying they’re worried they will be the ones to bear the burden of energy infrastructure development while receiving no real benefits.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas pushes stricter sustainability disclosures for banks in 2027
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will be adopting more rigid international reporting standards on sustainability for all universal and commercial banks, starting 2027. This was announced through an exploratory note acknowledging how climate change threatens financial stability, urging stakeholders to demand more “reliable and decision-useful information.”
More at a glance
Other stories from Sustina Earth: