15 October 2009
Chevron Corporation Addresses Community Needs in Philippines
Washington — Chevron Corporation, an energy company based in San Ramon, California, tackles social and economic challenges in countries in which it does business, including in the Philippines, where it has established public-private partnerships and donated money to further education, small-business development and environmental projects.
Chevron’s work in the Philippines has earned it a place among a handful of finalists for the U.S. secretary of state’s 2009 Award for Corporate Excellence.
One of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, Chevron has been doing business in the Philippines for 90 years. Its $2 billion in investment and 21,000 employees have made it an integral part of the archipelago for more than three generations.
In the Philippines, as in other countries where it operates energy projects, Chevron also donates money to research and training of health care workers in an effort to fight infectious diseases.
In 2008, Chevron’s community-engagement programs around the world were worth $160 million, with 14 percent going to programs in the Asia-Pacific region.
In the Philippines, where tuberculosis is the sixth-greatest cause of death and disproportionately affects the poor, Chevron launched a partnership with the Tropical Disease Foundation in October 2008 to support TB treatment and prevention. The partnership includes an awareness campaign for employees and education, testing and referral services at oil terminals and Caltex service stations for customers and drivers in greater Manila and other cities.
The State Department, in naming finalists for the award, also cites Chevron’s work with local governments and the Consuelo Foundation, a nongovernmental organization, to help out-of-school youth acquire skills they need to find jobs or start small businesses. In 2008, a Chevron-supported program trained 150 youth in welding, electronics and small-engine repair.
The energy company also has won praise for its environmental focus, particularly exemplified by its Chevron Environmental Management Company, established in 1998. That subsidiary offers a range of environmental-liability management services, including site assessment and remediation; health, environmental and safety due diligence; onshore and offshore facilities decommissioning; and work with abandoned wells.
A leader in alternative energy and the world’s largest producer of geothermal energy, Chevron uses geothermal power through steam fields that use the earth’s heat for electricity plants serving population centers in the Philippines. Such innovation has helped make the island nation the second-largest geothermal energy–producing country in the world, after the United States.
For more information, see a fact sheet on Chevron programs in the Philippines (PDF, 67KB) and a record of Chevron’s work in the Philippines on the Chevron Web site.
