SPEAKING recently in Washington, D.C., SM Prime President Hans Sy reiterated his pledge to incorporate disaster resiliency into business models in keeping with the call of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).
Sy asked other global corporations to make the same commitment during the meeting of the UNISDR Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilience Societies in mid-October.
Sy, a scion of the family that is engaged in mall operations and housing development, is the only Filipino member in the international board of the UNISDR Private Sector Alliance, which is also known as Arise.
SM Prime is the secretariat of Arise Philippines.
“Our commitment to disaster resiliency has always been at the core of our business and we will further find ways to innovate in order to make business more responsive to the needs and demand of our times,” Sy said.
In the same meeting, UNISDR called on business leaders to make the risks posed by natural and man-made hazards to be right at the front and center of their investment choices.
This, UNISDR said, would lead to substantially reducing the economic damage wrought by natural calamities worldwide.
Taking note of the frequency and intensity of weather hazards, such as Supertyphoon Yolanda and Hurricane Matthew recently, UNISDR said disaster-risk reduction should be the principal consideration in all business decisions owing to the costly consequences of disasters instigated by climate change.
More than 100 private-sector representatives from various industries, like construction, insurance, retail, tourism, consulting and technology, attended the meeting.
The meeting was aimed at reviewing ongoing projects to build resilience and identify gaps in order to achieve the global goals set out in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
The Sendai framework, a 15-year plan to curb disaster deaths, reduce the number of affected people and cut down the magnitude of economic losses, was adopted by the international community in March 2015.
It is intertwined with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
SM Prime has been propagating disaster resiliency and calamity management in the private sector through the annual Top Leaders Forum, which brings together the UNISDR, government officials and business leaders to discuss best practices in disaster-risk reduction and management.