Data Center Operators Unite, Strengthening the Philippines’ Bid as Next Digital Hub of Southeast Asia

The country’s leading data center operators have officially joined forces to form the Data Center Operators of the Philippines (DCPH), a unified alliance that aims to strengthen the country’s position as the next digital hub of Southeast Asia. This landmark partnership was formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing attended by representatives from VITRO Inc., ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (Philippines), YCO Cloud, Digital Edge Philippines, Digital Halo, and A-FLOW.

Together, these companies share a common vision—to strengthen the Philippines’ regional competitiveness in the global digital economy through robust data center infrastructure development and industry collaboration.

The DCPH members represent a combined 473MW of IT power capacity and will serve as a unified voice for the Philippine data center industry, driving stronger collaboration across stakeholders and allied sectors. Its key goals include advancing infrastructure and innovation; working with the power sector to ensure competitive rates and renewable energy access; with telcos to enhance connectivity; and with government agencies such as the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to champion supportive policies, including data localization. The group also seeks to develop local talent and sustain industry growth amid rising demand for hyperscale, AI, and other next-generation technologies.

Championing Data Localization for the Public Sector

The alliance underscored that data localization is crucial for data processed and stored by the public sector. Keeping government data within the country safeguards national security and protects citizen data. Neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have already implemented strong data localization policies, recognizing citizen data as a strategic national asset that underpins data sovereignty and economic growth. By adopting similar measures, the Philippines can enhance its infrastructure resilience, attract greater cloud and AI investments, and establish itself as a leading digital hub in the region, enabling the free and seamless flow of data across borders to support the digital economy.

As digital transformation and AI adoption accelerate worldwide, this alliance marks a pivotal step toward building a future-ready and globally competitive digital economy for the Philippines—one powered by data centers, the backbone of digitalization.

Anko Celebrates One Year of Home, Joy, and Brighter Living in the Philippines

Manila, Philippines — A year ago, Australia's beloved home and lifestyle brand, Anko, opened its first door in the Philippines, promising to blend Australian creativity with Filipino warmth. Fast forward to today, and the brand is not just a newcomer but a vibrant part of countless Filipino homes, recently celebrating its first anniversary with a weekend of festivities that underscored its growing connection with the community.

The celebration kicked off on November 7, 2025, at the Palm Drive Activity Center in Ayala Malls Glorietta 2, transforming the space into a hub of birthday and holiday cheer. Shoppers who signed up for the Anko Club were treated to a fun-filled day of immersive experiences, including festive photo spots, interactive gifting zones, and a special bonding moment with brand ambassador and actress Anne Curtis.

The festivities continued throughout the weekend with engaging creative workshops across Anko stores in Ayala Malls TriNoma, Alabang Town Center, and Manila Bay. These sessions—featuring gift wrapping, calligraphy, and more—inspired shoppers to craft personal and meaningful holiday gifts, aligning with Anko's spirit of thoughtfulness and its appreciation for the warm support from the Filipino community over the year.

A Brighter First Year

Since its arrival, Anko has stayed true to its promise to make everyday living brighter with well-designed, affordable products across key categories such as home, kitchen, toys, beauty, and pet essentials. To keep the shopping experience fresh and inspiring, the brand ensures new items arrive every week, allowing shoppers to constantly discover the trendiest finds with irresistible prices. This year also saw an exciting expansion into the small appliances category, offering even more ways for Filipinos to elevate their daily routines.

The response has fueled rapid expansion, growing from one to four thriving stores in Ayala Malls Glorietta, TriNoma, Alabang Town Center, and Ayala Malls Manila Bay, with a fifth branch soon to open at Ayala Malls Feliz.

“It’s been such an exciting and fulfilling first year. We launched Anko to offer quality, design, and affordability all in one place, and the response from Filipino shoppers has been incredible, which inspired us to move forward,” shares Rachel Turner, Country Manager of Anko Philippines.

Throughout the year, Anko focused on building a deep connection with its growing community, celebrating love, family, and togetherness through thoughtfully curated campaigns and in-store experiences. From intimate events to creative workshops, the brand ensures every moment resonates to create bright, thoughtful, and functional spaces that bring people together.

To offer constant inspiration, Anko unveils its Christmas lookbook (www.anko.com/ph/lookbook/), providing Filipinos with beautifully styled visual guides for incorporating the brand’s affordable, on-trend pieces into their homes and fresh gifting ideas to loved ones this holiday season.

Beyond its physical stores, Anko nurtures a vibrant digital community. The Anko Club has rapidly grown to over 34,000 members who enjoy exclusive perks, early access to collections, and everyday design inspiration through the dedicated app.

Anko also continues to champion creativity and authenticity through its Ko-Creator Program, partnering with local content creators who share the brand’s passion for design and storytelling. This program also serves as a platform for creators to showcase their talent, grow their craft, and build their own success stories.

An Even Brighter Future

As Anko enters its second year, the brand remains steadfast in its mission to make everyday living brighter for Filipino families. The warm reception and positive feedback from customers over the past year have shaped the brand’s journey, fueling its growth from one store to a growing community of Filipinos who share a love for home, style, and everyday living.

“For us, growth is about more than opening new stores — it’s about enriching the experience,” Turner shares. “We want every Anko store to feel like a place where Filipinos can find inspiration, comfort, and joy,” she added.

With more store openings, creative collaborations, and family-centered campaigns ahead, Anko is committed to continuing its journey of bringing Australian design and Filipino heart together.

Be part of Anko’s next chapter by joining the Anko Club at www.anko.com/anko-club, or by downloading the app for first access to new collections, exclusive perks, and the brand’s upcoming events and collaborations. Stay inspired by following @anko_philippines on Instagram and TikTok.

Philippine Companies Double Down on Sustainability to Drive Growth Amid Economic Uncertainty: Schneider Electric

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Schneider Electric, a global energy technology leader, today announced the results of its annual Green Impact Gap survey, revealing that Philippine business leaders increasingly view sustainability as a driver of growth and competitiveness, even as they cite economic uncertainty and geopolitical instability as barriers to further sustainability investment.

Ninety-seven percent of companies have established sustainability targets. Among them, 58% report that sustainability reporting has become easier over the past year, largely due to technology advancements. Yet, 32% still face challenges, citing factors such as rising costs.

This year, 55% of company leaders identify innovation and competitiveness as key drivers of sustainability, with the strongest emphasis from the semiconductors (71%) and data centers (60%) sectors, followed by real estate (53%) and healthcare (52%). This underscores how industries increasingly link sustainability with business innovation.

Sustainability is also delivering tangible business value. This year, 52% of leaders say it creates new business opportunities, up from 42% in 2024. Similarly, 42% pursue sustainability to strengthen brand and reputation, compared with 32% last year, while 46% cite cost savings and financial benefits, up from 43%. These year-on-year gains demonstrate that sustainability has evolved from a peripheral initiative into a core strategy for competitiveness and resilience.

While findings underscore the growing commitment to sustainability in the Philippines, they also reveal a persistent ‘Green Impact Gap’ — the misalignment between companies' declared sustainability goals and the tangible actions taken to achieve them. This year, 97% of companies set targets, but less than half are taking comprehensive action, keeping the regional Green Impact Gap at 46%.

With 2025 marking a critical milestone on the path to 2030 climate goals, companies remain optimistic. Around 84% express confidence in meeting or exceeding their 2030 targets, while 20% report being more than three years ahead of schedule.

“Companies across the Philippines are not just weathering the storm—they’re using sustainability as a compass to navigate it,” said Ireen Catane, Country President, Schneider Electric Philippines. “Despite volatile economic conditions, early movers and adopters are turning to digitalization and AI to drive efficiency, mitigate risk, and create lasting value.”

In parallel, two-thirds of companies (66%) report being very or moderately familiar with Republic Act 11285, the Philippines' Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act. Among these, 85% express moderate to high confidence in meeting its requirements, signaling readiness to implement concrete energy-efficiency measures. This trend aligns with the DOE's national efforts to promote energy efficiency, supporting businesses and local governments in optimizing energy use while advancing sustainability goals.

AI unlocks cost savings and energy efficiency

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is helping companies address financial and energy risks. 92% of companies in the Philippines this year are already applying or are interested in applying AI to advance their sustainability ambitions. At 59%, AI for energy consumption optimization now tops the list of energy and resource efficiency applications, surpassing waste management (50%) and smart building management and automation (49%).

Companies see AI’s biggest impact on sustainability in automating data collection and reporting (51%), optimizing energy use (44%), and enhancing product design (44%). By improving energy efficiency, AI helps mitigate cost risks, aligning with the 46% of company leaders who cite financial benefits and savings as key drivers for sustainability amid persistent energy price concerns.

With the rise of energy demand in the Philippines, which the Department of Energy (DOE) projects will grow 4–5% annually and potentially double total power consumption by 2040 under the Philippine Energy Plan, companies continued to adjust their decarbonization strategies in 2025. The most widely adopted measures were switching to low-carbon or electric vehicles for transport (27%, up from 25%), and investing in research and development to drive innovation in low-carbon technologies (27%, up from 25%).

From 2024 to 2025, companies advanced in cutting Scope 2 emissions—indirect emissions from purchased energy such as electricity, steam, heating, and cooling—through onsite renewables (34%, up from 29%) and energy-efficient equipment (41%, unchanged). They also adopted emerging measures like Green IT plans (31%). Efforts to reduce Scope 3, or value chain, emissions also grew, with gains in supply chain optimization (33%, up from 29%) and in promoting remote work and video conferencing to cut commuting and travel-related emissions (31%, up from 30%).

Investments hold steady despite economic uncertainty

With business leaders seeing the bottom-line benefit of sustainability, planned investment in sustainability transformation has held steady, with 23% of companies planning to invest at least $US1 million over the next two years.

While investment in sustainability continues to face key limiters, most have eased slightly year-on-year. Economic uncertainty remains the top concern, but dropped from 49% in 2024 to 45% in 2025.

Internal budgetary constraints show a sharper decline, from 48% to 37%, while regulatory and policy difficulties (37% to 35%) and poor incentives (36% to 35%) also decreased marginally. These shifts suggest that, while structural and financial challenges remain, the investment landscape in 2025 is relatively more favorable for corporate sustainability than the previous year.

Now in its third year, the Schneider Electric Green Impact Gap survey, conducted with Milieu Insight, gathers insights from 4,500 middle- to senior-level executives across nine Asian markets—Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam—on how businesses are prioritizing and investing in sustainability through a 30-question assessment.

Smart Secures First Green Loan to Accelerate Energy-Efficient 5G Rollout

PLDT Inc. (PLDT) wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) has secured its first-ever green loan facility amounting to ₱2.0 billion for the expansion of its 5G network across the country. This landmark transaction reinforces Smart’s commitment to enhancing the accessibility of digital services through a future-ready and environmentally responsible network backbone.

Issued by Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company (Metrobank), Smart’s green loan will be used to fund the continuous upgrade and expansion of its network infrastructure to enhance both energy efficiency and customer experience.

Compared to previous technologies like 4G/LTE, 5G networks carry more data traffic at a much faster pace, making it more energy efficient per gigabyte of data and more reliable in delivering better speeds to end-users. 5G also has the capability to shift to low-energy mode and optimize energy consumption based on actual network traffic, facilitating reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

“This green loan is more than a financial milestone—it demonstrates Smart’s participation in shaping a low-carbon digital future. By investing in energy-efficient technologies, we are pursuing business growth and efficiency, while being mindful of our impact to the environment,” said PLDT and Smart Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Management Officer Danny Y. Yu.

Smart’s green financing initiative is anchored on internationally recognized Green Loan Principles as developed and facilitated by leading financial institutions. It also supports the PLDT Group’s decarbonization roadmap that aims to reduce its Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 40% by 2030, based on its 2019 baseline.

PLDT and Smart Chief Sustainability Officer Melissa Vergel de Dios highlighted that this green loan facility directly contributes to the company’s continuing focus on its material topics, which anchor on addressing expectations of its key stakeholders, particularly on investments in innovation and infrastructure, customer experience, and operational resource efficiency.

“Financing plays a key role in enabling the achievement of our business and sustainability goals and in our pursuit of initiatives that contribute to our long-term growth and create value for the planet and the future generations,” she said.

Metrobank Corporate Banking Group Head Rommel Dionisio said, “We are proud to support Smart’s landmark green loan facility, as it aligns with our commitment to integrate sustainability principles into our financing practices. By supporting energy-efficient 5G upgrades, we are not just funding growth, we are investing in a smarter, greener digital future together.”

In 2024, Smart’s parent firm PLDT, obtained a ₱4.0 billion green loan facility from Metrobank for the expansion of its fiber infrastructure and energy-efficient systems.

PLDT and Smart also continue to invest in other green technologies for their network infrastructure to optimize energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions, while enhancing service reliability. These include increasing the use of renewable energy sources and the deployment of an Artificial Intelligence-enabled green radio solution for all its wireless network radio sites, among others.

These initiatives align with the PLDT Group’s continuing commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goal 9 on Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure and Goal 13 on Climate Action.

Festival-Goers Dared to Switch as LIFT Powers Up Its First MassKara Experience

Coca-Cola Philippines’ newest drink, LIFT, brought an electrifying boost to the streets of Bacolod with its first MassKara Festival appearance. The three-day activation along Lacson Street became one of the festival’s most talked-about stops, as thousands of festival-goers took on the “Dare to Switch” challenge.

At the heart of the activation were exciting activities that captured LIFT’s bold challenger spirit. Attendees took on the LIFT Maze, racing against the clock to find their way through the puzzle’s twists and turns; tested their strength at the LIFT UpBar; struck creative poses at the LIFT Art Photo Wall; and proved their unwavering focus and coordination at the LIFT Bottle Up challenge. Each game encouraged participants to push their limits, boost their confidence, and drive to go further.

The LIFT booth buzzed with excitement as festival-goers lined up to take their shot at beating the timer and outscoring others. Many also stopped by the booth to capture share-worthy moments and turned the experience into an online celebration of the challenger mindset. Across every challenge, the LIFT booth became a space where high spirits met determination, proving that anyone can dare to switch.

“LIFT’s first-ever MassKara activation was a celebration of the bold spirit that defines both the brand and the festival,” said Frenissa Mae Lagman, Frontline Marketing Senior Director of Coca-Cola Philippines.

“MassKara is all about uplifting the Filipino spirit, and LIFT embodies that same drive — to face every challenge with confidence and dare to switch when it’s time to level up.”

As the festival wrapped up, LIFT left its mark after energizing thousands of attendees and introducing more Filipinos to the brand’s challenger spirit. Ready to make the switch? LIFT is now available in sari-sari stores across Western Visayas, with more events and activations to come nationwide.

Follow LIFT Philippines on Facebook and Instagram to catch the next stop of the Dare to Switch experience.