ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability Southeast Asia Secretariat (ICLEI SEAS) conducted scoping missions in Legazpi City (12 March 2019) and General Santos  (11 April 2019) to introduce entity and community-level greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory and to determine data sources for the completion of the inventory.

The workshop is part of the Strengthening Urban Resilience for Growth with Equity (SURGE), a project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aiming to foster resilient and sustainable economic growth among secondary cities in the Philippines.

The scoping mission laid down the groundwork and set the expectations of each city regarding the process of formulating their respective GHG inventory reports. Certain concepts and activity data requirements were clarified as well as identifying the potential sources of said activity data.

During the workshops, the importance of conducting the GHG emissions inventory was also tackled. Through the completion of their GHG inventory, the City Governments of Legazpi and General Santos will be able to identify opportunities to decrease GHG emissions through prescribing policies and strategies to priority sectors such as transport, waste management, energy consumption, and others.

The visit to the cities also drew support from the private sector. Organizations such as the South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative, Inc. and the General Santos City Water District in General Santos and the Albay Power and Electric Corporation and the Legazpi City Water District in Legazpi signified their cooperation to provide energy and water data that are needed for the GHG emissions inventory.

A writeshop for the Technical Working Group is slated as a follow-through activity for Legazpi and General Santos in July and August 2019 respectively. The TWGs are responsible for developing the GHG inventories and leading the data collection and management.