Megaworld wants townships to switch to RE sources by 2025
By Arra B. Francia
Senior Reporter
MEGAWORLD Corp. wants all of its townships to be fully reliant on renewable energy sources by 2025, in a bid to make its developments sustainable for the future.
“Our goal by 2025 is all of our townships will have renewable sources,” Megaworld Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Andrew L. Tan told BusinessWorld in a recent interview.
“We want to switch our supply to renewable sources. So we’re asking all of our power suppliers to make that switch already. That will be the transition for the next three years,” Mr. Tan added.
The listed property developer currently has 24 townships across the country, the latest of which is called Empire East Highland City which is being developed with its subsidiary Empire East Land Holdings, Inc. The 24-hectare estate is located along F. Felix Avenue in Cainta.
Megaworld’s other townships include Eastwood City in Quezon City; Newport City in Pasay City; McKinley Hill, McKinley West, Uptown Bonifacio, and Forbes Town, all in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City; The Mactan Newtown in Cebu; Iloilo Business Park in Mandurriao, Iloilo City; Sta. Barbara Heights in Iloilo; and Boracay Newcoast in Boracay Island, among others.
In line with its “live-work-play” concept, Megaworld townships have a mix of residential, office, commercial, and retail establishments.
Mr. Tan said the company will implement the shift by township, with the first changes to be seen in Iloilo Business Park.
“We are actually doing it in Iloilo first, given that there’s some new developments there on the distributor side and the supply side. We piloted our solar power there,” he explained.
Iloilo Business Park spans 72 hectares and is the company’s largest investment in Western Visayas. Megaworld is spending P35 billion to develop residential condominiums, office towers, a lifestyle mall, hotels and convention centers, retail areas, and a transport hub in the township in the next 10 years.
The company also said it will incorporate solar panels into the roof of its P1.2-billion Upper East Mall inside its Upper East township in Bacolod City. The three-storey mall will be Megaworld’s first green mall featuring sustainable and energy efficient designs.
Megaworld grew its net income attributable to the parent by 16% to P3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2019, after consolidated revenues also increased 15% to P14.9 billion.
It is spending P65 billion in capital expenditures this year to support the property development in its townships.
The company is part of tycoon Andrew L. Tan’s holding firm Alliance Global Group, Inc., which also has core interests in liquor, gaming, quick-service restaurants, and infrastructure development.
