DMCI Mining bats for carbon credit scheme

DMCI Mining Corp. said it proposed that the government adopt a carbon credits framework to help offset the continued use of fossil fuels.

DMCI Mining President Tulsi Das C. Reyes said the company met with the Environment department to make the proposal.

“We don’t have a framework for carbon credit in the Philippines. We were burning a lot of fossil fuels. There’s no commercial value to that, there’s no story to that. We’re not doing this type of protection of trees. I think it is about time the Philippines becomes a leader in that,” Mr. Reyes said in a briefing last week.

Mr. Reyes said that the national greening program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) could be the foundation for the carbon credit framework, by providing an avenue tor emitters to offset their continued use of fossil energy.

The national greening program seeks to restore denuded forests, making it a possible candidate for companies seeking offsets.

“We would like to help the DENR with Marubeni., our partner. Marubeni (a Japanese trading company) has a global framework and they’ve done it in other countries before. If you use the national greening program, that is already a good foundation,” Mr. Reyes said.

“All the transnational players need the carbon credits. If you don’t have that, that is just one less opportunity to win this out. I think within the next six years, you’ll see improvements in that space and we need it now,” he added.

DMCI Mining is a unit of DMCI Holdings, Inc. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave