Lopez-led geothermal leader Energy Development Corporation (EDC) formally inked an agreement with one of Bicol’s premiere universities to rescue and protect priority threatened species in the region under its flagship environment program BINHI.

EDC signed a partnership agreement with Bicol University through a virtual ceremony to establish and manage  an arboretum, which is a collection of Philippine threatened tree species under the priority of EDC BINHI Program inside  the latter’s campus that will serve as a living laboratory and  provide educational awareness to students, teachers, and environmental enthusiasts and for future proliferation of these vanishing species..

BINHI is EDC’s forest restoration program and the country’s biggest private sector-led greening initiative that has been bridging forest gaps and bringing back to abundance 96 flagship threatened Philippine native tree species for 11 years now to leave a legacy of a verdant Philippines for future generations.

EDC Corporate Social Responsibility Head for Bacon-Manito geothermal facility Eduardo L. Jimenez said the Bicol University has been a long-term partner of EDC in its different social responsibility endeavors especially in education and for environment-related causes.

“We are pleased to formally have BU as our BINHI partner. This agreement only strengthens the relationship of the two institutions which share the same commitment to environmental protection and rehabilitation,” Jimenez said.

Under the agreement, EDC will provide the seedlings and technical assistance for the protection and maintenance of the tree species inside the arboretum.

The BU is EDC’s 178th BINHI partner while the EDC BINHI Arboretum will be the 16th arboretum to be established. “This partnership commitment signing for the Bicol University arboretum  with our friends from EDC  is part of our dream for BU that is coming true at last,” said Bicol University President Dr. Arnulfo M. Mascarinas during the signing ceremony.

EDC was already able to reforest close to 10,000 hectares, 100-ha of which were in 2019 across its three different sites. In its Bacon-Manito geothermal reservation in Albay and Sorsogon alone, 1,584 hectares were already reforested and more than 1 million seedlings were planted under the BINHI program.

EDC operates the 140-MW Bacon-Manito Geothermal Project that supplies clean and reliable power to the Luzon grid as well as its retail electricity customers through the company’s power arm, BacMan Geothermal, Incorporated. It is the world’s largest vertically-integrated geothermal producer and the Philippines’ pioneer and largest 100% renewable energy  company , supplying 1,457.8MW of clean and renewable power to the Philippines.