Philippine Private Sector Engagement Beyond Climate Change Awareness

Abstract

Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects everyone. It is a development issue (World Bank in World development report and climate change. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2010) that has to be understood in order to be addressed more collectively and comprehensively. There have been numerous studies on the role of governments in climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is because as duty bearers, governments are expected to orchestrate initiatives to address environmental, economic, social and other vulnerabilities of countries. Studies concerning the role of the private sector in climate change are however few. Thus, under the framework of collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash in J Public Adm Res Theor 18:543–571, 2008) where each sector of the society has a role to play, this paper focuses on the roles played by the private sector in addressing the risks and vulnerabilities brought about by climate change. In so doing, it hopes to contribute to the understanding of private sector engagement in climate change beyond awareness raising. Being mainly a desk review of secondary materials and existing studies on the topic at hand, it argues that the private sector in the Philippines has embraced the issue of climate change and has been doing all it can to help address this development concern. It also looks at some of the messages, e.g., the risks of climate change, support needed for climate change solutions, and some climate change issues and concerns, selected business companies have been communicating to the public to understand the content as well as the underpinning philosophy of why private sector initiates activities for climate change.

Paper submitted for presentation at the World Symposium on Climate Change Communication, held in Graz, Austria on 7th–9th February 2018.