Scorecard to keep track on Baguio’s tact for circular economy to be instituted

BAGUIO CITY (February 17, 2925)— A scorecard to monitor the progress of the circular economy (CE) programs on waste minimization and transformation into economic resources and ensure their success is being sought by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong.



This as the city is currently aggressively pursuing programs on the ten circular economy principles of “recover, recycle, repurpose, remanufacture, refurbish, repair, reuse, reduce, rethink and refuse” to manage its wastes in the hope of integrating these practices into the residents’ way of life and help achieve environmental sustainability and resiliency.

Magalong tasked the City Planning Development and Sustainability Office under CPDSO Coordinator Arch. Donna Tabangin and General Service Officer under Officer Eugene Buyucan to come up with a scorecard that will contain indicators, thresholds and other gauges that can measure compliance with the programs.

The mayor also wanted the setting of targets for the entire city and for each of the barangays from 2025-2028 to monitor the progress of the portfolios focusing on the three identified programs: Bida Barangay, Circular Tourism Enterprises and Green Education to cover three critical sectors in the city.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Dr. Selva Ramachandran applauded Magalong’s idea of the scorecard saying it is viable and effective in pushing project implementers to measure themselves and aim higher.

Ramachandran said the idea can also be adopted in other local government units who like Baguio City were included as grantees of the European Union-Green Economy Programme in the Philippines (EU-GEPP) Green LGUs project where CE is a component.

The two offices were given two weeks to finalize the scorecard and target setting.

Magalong also challenged barangays to take the lead in creating awareness of circular economy being the best way to manage the city’s garbage problem and work its way to its vision of attaining environmental sustainability and resiliency and address urban decay and climate change effects.

He said the city has slowly been seeing some improvement in the city’s waste management program but more needs to be done especially in effecting a change in the mindset and behavior of the people to make CE concepts a way of life.

“During our latest evaluation no less than our partners in the UNDP said that Baguio is taking the lead in the CE program and this because of the active participation of the different sectors. Your presence in the activities proved that people are becoming more enthusiastic but we need more people to get involved,” the mayor said.

“This is a challenge to our barangay leaders, let’s raise this awareness to our people and open their eyes that there is no other direction in waste management but circular economy,” Magalong said.