It is also important to seek feedback from business partners on your performance and ways to enhance your support. In-house lawyers should actively incorporate feedback to improve their legal services and strengthen the relationship. Consistency, trust, and reliability are key in developing enduring partnerships with business partners.

Can you talk about you or your company’s efforts on renewability, sustainability, or other environmentally friendly activities? 

CCBPI has launched various initiatives to achieve its sustainability goals – from water and energy conservation to waste management and reduction. Water-saving initiatives and operational efficiencies are strictly observed across all manufacturing sites. Many of its manufacturing plants now utilize solar power, while delivery trucks are EuroIV- and EuroV-compliant.

Cognizant of the impact of its product packaging as a contributor to solid waste, CCBPI has decided to exit its sachet business. CCBPI has also implemented light weighting of its PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic packaging, which has resulted in a huge reduction in its plastic consumption while ensuring the same top quality of its beverages. As a result, packaging for single serve (500ml and 330ml) Wilkins and Viva are now approximately 20% lighter.

As part of The Coca-Cola Company, CCBPI has adopted Coca-Cola’s “World Without Waste” vision, with the goal of collecting and recycling the equivalent of every bottle and can that it sells by 2030, and to integrate recycled content in its packaging.

Among CCBPI’s sustainability initiatives that I am personally involved in as in-house counsel and which I am most proud of is its USD63M investment in PetValue Philippines Corporation, together with Indorama Ventures — a global leader in packaging solutions and green technology. As the world’s largest producer of recycled resin used in plastic beverage bottles, PetValue is Indorama Venture’s latest and most advanced recycled PET facility, joining a family of recycling plants across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. PetValue is the country’s first food-grade bottle-to-bottle recycling facility with the capacity to process around 30,000 MT or approximately two-billion pieces of plastic bottles annually. Part of our continuing legal support to the project aside from the review of all related contracts is to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.