WWF-Philippines and the Department of Tourism Conduct a Sustainability Training for CAR Tourism and Food Service Stakeholders
August 2019
Representatives from WWF-Philippines’ The Sustainable Diner project team and Environmental Education team, along with representatives from the Department of Tourism, pose with the training participants from the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines, through its pioneer project on sustainable consumption and production, The Sustainable Diner: A Key Ingredient for Sustainable Tourism, conducted a sustainability training for tourism and food service stakeholders in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) from August 15 to 16, 2019 at the Baguio Country Club in Baguio City. In partnership with the Department of Tourism (DOT), the sustainability training focused on the key role of food when it comes to promoting sustainable tourism, particularly on how stakeholders can incorporate sustainable practices in their food service operations.
Jovita Ganongan, Officer-In-Charge of the DOT-CAR, delivering the welcome speech.
Jovita Ganongan, DOT-CAR’s Officer-In-Charge, detailed in her welcome speech the beauty of the Cordillera Administrative Region and what the area has to offer to domestic and foreign tourists. The Cordillera Administrative Region is comprised of six landlocked provinces - Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Mountain Province - with Baguio City designated as its regional center. Local cuisine is one of the major tourist attractions of the region, a distinct component of the tourism experience. Ganongan said CAR proudly showcases the rich cuisine of the region in their food fair called Mangan Taku. The fair was launched in April 2019, highlighting unique highland cuisine, in a bid to boost tourism in the region, she added. An advocate of slow food, she encouraged the participants to take to heart the learning they would gain from the training and integrate sustainability in their restaurant and hotel operations.
She was followed by Jonna Mae Jacinto, WWF-Philippines’ Environmental Education Officer, who presented a general picture of the environmental problems people and other species are currently experiencing. She shared how unsustainable food production and consumption, both globally and locally, actually contribute to the degradation of our forests and seas, prompting for a need for more sustainable practices in the food industry.
Jonna Mae Jacinto, WWF-Philippines’ Environmental Education Officer, presenting the current environmental landscape as well as the most notable issues the planet is facing now.
Melody Melo-Rijk, Project Manager for Sustainable Consumption and Production in the Philippines, conducted the main training sessions. The first one was on food safety and safe food handling. The training was based on ServSafe, a food and beverage safety training and certification program that covers the latest FDA Code and extensive food sanitation training research and experience into its manual, providing participants comprehensive training guidelines. By undergoing this particular training, the participants were updated on current food safety and food handling practices that were essential to prevent food wastes in their respective establishments.
The second one was on food waste management, where she used a localized version of the Food Waste Management Toolkit, developed by WWF US in collaboration with the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and with the generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation. The overall goal of the toolkit is for companies and organizations to set-up a food waste management system focusing on two major phases: food waste separation and food waste measurement. These will be then used as baseline data to set food waste reduction goals.
Liezl Stuart Del Rosario, The Sustainable Diner project’s Policy Specialist, presenting the project’s background, objectives, and activities.
Meanwhile, Liezl Stuart Del Rosario, The Sustainable Diner project’s Policy Specialist, presented the project to the training participants, discussing the project’s background, objectives, and activities. She also facilitated two workshops, the first of which was a visioning exercise which helped the participants identify their common goals for the restaurants and hotels. The participants paid extra attention to the sustainability principles of local sourcing, food waste reduction, efficient resource use, and minimization of single-use plastics. The second was an action-planning workshop that helped the participants refine their ideas in order to come up with particular steps to take to achieve their set goals. Some of the issues that were raised included food waste diversion, high demand for seasonal products, limited space for composting facilities, and lax single-use plastics policies. From these challenges, the participants came up with solutions such as menu modification, preservation of seasonal produce, communal and backyard composting, and single-use plastic elimination policies set by the businesses themselves.
In their groups, participants came up with solutions on how they can address the different sustainability issues they were facing.
As an action point, the participants formed an association that will commit to meet regularly to share sustainability knowledge and best practices with each other. The association is expected to expand to accommodate more representatives from other restaurants and hotels in the region. This endeavor will be supported by the DOT through additional trainings and workshops on the subject matter.
While The Sustainable Diner project mainly focuses on its three key cities, - Quezon City, Tagaytay City, and Cebu City - it is also continuously reaching out to other areas that would benefit greatly from the inclusion of sustainable dining practices in their operations. At the end of the day, it takes a country to fully transform a local industry. The project thanks the Department of Tourism for choosing to partner with The Sustainable Diner project. Indeed, when various stakeholders work together, making the tourism and food service industry more sustainable becomes possible!
The Sustainable Diner project, under WWF-Philippines’ Sustainable Consumption and Production, is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.
For more information, please contact:
Melody Melo-Rijk
Project Manager
mmelorijk@wwf.org.ph
For media arrangements, please contact:
Pamela Luber
Integrated Marketing Communications Specialist
pluber@wwf.org.ph
Lorayne Roque
Sustainable Consumer Specialist
lroque@wwf.org.ph
