TECHNOLOGY
Data, digitalization keys to stewarding sustainability in PH
December 11, 2022 9:32 p.m.
Nowadays, businesses and governments have been racing to achieve a sustainable, green, and digital economy and are driven to showcase their sustainability goals transparently.
In the Philippines, for instance, the government further enhanced its efforts to build climate resilience among communities nationwide and address climate change to protect the environment, lives, and property. Last year, the country submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Secretariat the first nationally determined contribution (NDC), covering its planned reduction and avoidance of greenhouse gasses (GHG) of 75 percent, of which 2.72 percent is unconditional. This commitment covers the period 2020 to 2030 for the sectors of agriculture, waste, industry, transport, and energy.
At the UN’s 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in November 2022, the Philippine government also vowed to support host country Egypt in its efforts to revitalize international consensus on the climate crisis. It also reiterated its call for climate justice and financial and technical support of developed countries for climate initiatives, particularly for developing nations.
Becoming stewards of sustainability
Meanwhile, in recent years, a growing number of organizations have been stepping up to help achieve a sustainable future by integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into their strategic frameworks. In this year’s COP27, for instance, SAP (NYSE: SAP) pledged to support more policy transformation globally and help innovate sustainable businesses by reenergizing emerging economies to achieve a trillion-dollar greener impact and job generation.
A recent report by SAP and Oxford Economics also revealed that 66 percent of businesses in Asia do not think it is difficult to be sustainable and profitable at the same time. However, only eight percent say they receive significant value from their sustainability strategies today.
This reality may have happened due to the disconnect between sustainability plans and actions for many organizations. While 60 percent of businesses have a communicated sustainability plan, only 20 percent have incentivized leaders based on their success. In addition, less than half (44 percent) say their employees are active participants in their sustainability efforts, with the highest in India at 52 percent, followed by Singapore at 51 percent and the lowest in Malaysia at 33 percent.
“Businesses across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, believe that they can boost their earnings while protecting the environment. This reality is a positive indicator to continue pushing towards sustainability. However, organizations must refocus their strategies to realize the significant value and reap better and actual outcomes,” said Rudy Abrahams, Managing Director of SAP Philippines.
Regulatory compliance: A key sustainability driver and a challenge
In a recent media event held by SAP at its headquarters at the NAC Tower, Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, Abrahams was joined by Apple Evangelista, Head, Sustainability and Social Responsibility (SSR) of the Globe Group, and Henrik Batallones, Marketing and Communications Director of the Supply Chain Management Association of the Philippines (SCMAP), to discuss how organizations have been refocusing their strategies to ensure sustainability.
“In the Philippines, organizations used to consider sustainability as a cost tied to regulatory compliance. But that perspective is changing. Sustainability is now seen as a strategic imperative to ensure that organizations not only provide better service to their customers but also help ensure a sustainable future,” said Batallones.
SCMAP is the premier supply chain industry organization in the country. Composed of the country’s major manufacturers, logistics providers, and retailers, SCMAP moves the industry’s global competitiveness by engaging with stakeholders in the public and private sectors, advancing supply chain education on all levels and organizing events that provide a venue for supply chain professionals to connect.
Abrahams, meanwhile, noted that too much focus on compliance can sometimes hinder achievement of sustainability goals. Citing data from the SAP and Oxford Economics report, he said that organizations in the region consider compliance as the second biggest sustainability challenge (26 percent), only behind reinventing business strategy. This means that organizations in the country may need to refocus their strategies to achieve greater value and benefit from sustainability.
Investing in data, improving sustainability outcomes
Key to improving sustainability outcomes will be the effective use of organizational data to make more informed decisions. For businesses in the Philippines, this remains a challenge as it takes time, especially for organizations like Globe, the Philippines’ top telco and digital solutions platform, which has various entities with different processes and reporting formats.
To address this challenge, Globe has been utilizing SAP solutions with 70 percent of the company’s internal systems now run by SAP. With SAP solutions already in place across its business units globally, the company migrated to SAP S/4HANA to improve fragmented processes, manual workloads, inefficiencies, lack of insights, and delayed decision-making.
Meanwhile, SAP Fiori apps helped enhance the user experience and access to insights. Enhanced visibility enables well-informed decision-making throughout the organization, and automation and fewer reconciliations in finance allow faster financial transaction processing, book closing, and error-free reporting.
Finance functions became integrated and efficient, providing real-time business insights, while IT security was strengthened with improved authorization controls and compliance. By facilitating these improvements, SAP S/4HANA proved to be a catalyst for change for Globe, helping it adapt to changes easily in its business environment.
“For us at Globe, sustainability is putting our purpose in action. By understanding what is material to us as a business and what matters to our stakeholders and our industry, we recognize how data-driven strategies play an integral role in guiding our sustainability practice,” Evangelista said.
Evangelista also emphasized the importance of responsible sustainability reporting, using it as a springboard for goals and target milestones in the coming years.
Abrahams could not agree more. He noted that businesses that are achieving value from sustainability are defined by traits such as setting clear expectations at the strategic level, applying the transformative power of technology and data management, and engaging with important audiences such as employees, supply chain partners and policymakers.
Helping organizations in their sustainability journey
SAP, for instance, has been helping organizations in their sustainability journey enabled by data, from driving transparency for disclosure purposes,incorporating or optimizing their data to make more sustainable business processes and decisions, to scaling sustainable practices across industry business networks and value chains.
In line with its purpose to help the world run better and improve people’s lives, SAP also enables organizations to achieve zero waste, zero emissions, and zero inequality through a broad range of solutions. Since organizations now demand fast, reliable, and compliant standard regulatory reporting, and want to leverage insights for their internal sustainable business transformation, SAP ESG solutions portfolio provides a scalable and integrated reporting platform.
Among its offerings are its most recently updated SAP Sustainability Control Tower (SCT) solution, which can help improve ESG transparency and sustainable business performance. SCT enables companies to record ESG factors with out-of-the-box integration with SAP systems for faster time to value and granular data visibility based on actual data, not averages.
The solution also enables companies to report regulatory compliant ESG metrics covering common frameworks based on an open and extensible solution with the largest ESG ecosystem. And lastly, it allows business leaders to act and plan with actionable insights, forecasts and setting targets, track initiatives, and optimize business processes to make an impact.
Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @SAPNews.
TECHNOLOGY
inDrive is 4th most downloaded travel app in PH
2:11 p.m. February 12, 2026
WITH over four million installations in 2025 alone, inDrive ranked fourth among the most downloaded travel apps in the Philippines, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
This ranking underscores Filipino users’ growing demand for inDrive to expand beyond ride-hailing as it evolves into a mobility super app.
inDrive also remained the world’s second most downloaded ride-hailing app for the fourth straight year. It also climbed from fifth to fourth place among the top travel apps globally and topped this category in Pakistan, Peru, Egypt, Morocco, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, and Zimbabwe.
Reflecting on this milestone, inDrive Founder and CEO Arsen Tomsky said, “This recognition reflects the trust people place in our platform and the continued dedication of our global team. As inDrive evolves into a super app, we remain focused on our core principles of fairness, transparency, and user choice while expanding access to services that make a meaningful difference in people’s daily lives.”
Full Speed Ahead as inDrive Evolves into a SuperApp
With inDrive growing its user base year-on-year, the app has begun expanding its services beyond ride-hailing in other key markets. Among these new offerings is inDrive.Ads, an in-app advertising platform. By generating new income streams, inDrive can keep its take rate among the lowest in the industry while supporting long-term sustainability for riders, drivers, and local communities.
Now live in 20 countries, including the Philippines, inDrive.Ads plans to expand to all global markets within this year. On inDrive.Ads, ads appear across various screens in the funnel and include multiple-dimension banners featuring graphics and animation, with transparent measurement tools built in.
Tomsky said in a statement, “Diversifying our business with a high-margin stream like Ads is an important step for inDrive. This new line gives us more flexibility to fund affordability at scale.”
Sofia Guinto, inDrive Philippines Country Representative, echoed similar sentiments, saying, “inDrive.Ads is our way of championing fairness and accessibility on all facets of our SuperApp. Through this, we can maintain fares that are both affordable for passengers and lucrative for our drivers and create equal opportunities for more people and brands.”
Beyond its global launch of inDrive.Ads, inDrive has also expanded into intercity transportation, courier and grocery delivery, and financial services in other global markets. These new services utilize artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to fix mapping gaps, improve ETA accuracy, anticipate user needs, and personalize solutions. Through these AI-powered offerings, inDrive continues to drive innovation while still giving users the freedom of choice in every ride.
Throughout the rest of 2026, inDrive will continue to update its features and grow its user base, becoming a true mobility superapp. Amid this shift, it ensures that all rollouts will be built around fairness, opportunity, and people’s real needs. For more updates on inDrive’s new offerings available in the Philippines, visit www.inDrive.com or follow @inDrive.ph on social media.
TECHNOLOGY
Google AI Tools open new frontiers for wildlife conservation in PH, Southeast Asia
2:22 p.m. February 5, 2026
The endangered hog deer was once plentiful throughout South and in Southeast Asia, including India, Pakistan, Burma and Thailand. The species now faces serious decline and a loss in genetic diversity.
As the Philippines continues to battle biodiversity loss, Google has announced a major step forward in using AI to preserve endangered species. Through a partnership with the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), Google is providing advanced AI tools and funding to sequence the genetic codes of threatened animals, a move that holds significant promise for conservation efforts in biodiversity hotspots like the Philippines.
Scientists predict that up to one million species globally face extinction. To combat this, Google is deploying AI technologies—including DeepPolisher, DeepVariant, and DeepConsensus—to make genomic sequencing faster, more accurate, and more affordable.
This process allows researchers to create a “biological instruction manual” for species, vital for designing effective conservation strategies.
Regional Impact for Southeast Asia. The initiative has already successfully sequenced 13 endangered species, several of which are native to the broader Southeast Asian region, highlighting the technology’s relevance to local ecosystems:
● The Elongated Tortoise: A critically endangered reptile native to Southeast Asia, currently the focus of captive breeding and reintroduction efforts.
● The Hog Deer: Once plentiful across South and Southeast Asia, this species now faces serious decline and loss of genetic diversity.
● Eld’s Deer: An endangered deer species indigenous to the region that requires breeding and conservation plan to survive.
Expanding the Safety Net. In addition to the initial species, Google.org has awarded the AI for Science fund to The Rockefeller University to expand this work to 150 additional species. This expansion opens the door for more unique wildlife—potentially including species found in the Philippines—to benefit from genomic preservation.
TECHNOLOGY
Infinix unveils XPAD Edge, its first 13.2-inch PC-level tablet redefining workplace productivity
12:01 p.m. February 2, 2026
Infinix today announced the launch of its first 13.2-inch ultra-slim productivity tablet, Infinix XPAD Edge. Featuring a 13.2-inch FHD+ (Full High Definition Plus) display, a sleek 6.19 mm metallic body, and a lightweight 588g design, XPAD Edge delivers the ideal balance of mobility and performance.With all-scenario 4G connectivity, the tablet redefines mobile productivity for modern creators, professionals, and learners.
Its detachable keyboard with touchpad transforms it into a true PC-level device, delivering a seamless workplace productivity experience, while combining cutting-edge technology and accessibility to give users greater freedom and efficiency everywhere.
Large Display, Ultra-Slim Design, and Productivity on the Go
Designed for today’s dynamic hybrid workforce, XPAD Edge enables users to work and learn efficiently anywhere. Measuring only 6.19mm thin and weighing 588g, it slips easily into a backpack or briefcase. Its 8000 mAh battery and all-scenario 4G connectivity provide lasting power and reliable access whether in a café, during travel, or at a remote worksite.
Furthermore, the expansive 13.2-inch 3:2 aspect-ratio display mirrors the proportions of a traditional PC screen, offering a broad workspace for documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.
With rich color reproduction and optimized contrast, every detail appears vivid and clear. Certified by TÜV Rheinland for low blue light and flicker-free performance, the XPAD Edge display filters up to 70% of harmful short-wave blue light and addresses the often-overlooked issue of screen flicker—helping to reduce eye fatigue during long working hours.
Inspired by the colors and light of the cosmos, the XPAD Edge is presented in the “Celestial Ink” colorway, refined metallic finish combines deep hues with a matte texture, blending technology with elegance in a minimalist design that suits both professional and personal settings.
PC-Level Experience for Smarter Workflows
Building on its ultra-slim design, XPAD Edge transforms mobile work into a truly PC-level experience. Designed as a versatile productivity hub, it brings together portability and power for efficient hybrid work and learning. Pre-installed WPS Office and an optimized task interface allow users to edit documents, manage files, and collaborate with ease. Whether preparing presentations, reviewing reports, or managing creative projects, XPAD Edge delivers a fast, intuitive, and professional workflow in every environment.
XPAD Edge supports split-screen, Parallel Windows, and multi-task drag-and-drop operations, maximizing the 13.2-inch large display for parallel applications. Within a single interface, users can browse data, take notes, and edit webpages effortlessly.
For external productivity, XPAD Edge supports Wireless Second Screen for PC*, enabling content mirroring or extension for meetings, design work, or entertainment. Users can also connect keyboards, mice, and other peripherals for a smooth, desktop-like experience that enhances both comfort and control.
In addition, XPAD Edge pairs seamlessly with the X Keyboard 20 to provide a flexible and natural writing experience. The magnetic keyboard and stylus combine precision with comfort, allowing users to take notes, sketch, or edit content with accuracy. Whether working in a café, classroom, or creative studio, XPAD Edge enables users to enjoy the freedom and efficiency of a complete mobile office anywhere.
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