How LIMA Estate in the Philippines is reshaping green business hubs

In the Philippine province of Batangas, LIMA Estate models a citywide vision that uplifts workers while appealing to climate-conscious employers

In the Philippines, a paradox beckons to enterprises: a modern industrial development that benefits the environment.

LIMA Estate, a township in booming Batangas province southwest of Manila, has become the country’s first industrial estate to clinch a certification for sustainability.

At 940 hectares, it is the archipelago’s largest privately owned industrial-anchored estate. The cool site, set around 300 metres above sea level between Lipa and Malvar, is a special economic zone with residential, commercial, and institutional uses.

LIMA Estate had sprung out of a 374-hectare industrial park, formerly a joint venture of local developer Alsons Land Corp. and Japanese firm Marubeni Corp. Aboitiz InfraCapital Economic Estates, the infrastructure division of conglomerate Aboitiz Group, fully acquired the site in 2014. The company looked to replicate the success of West Cebu Estate, a seaside industrial park that it turned into one of the country’s major shipbuilding centres.

Now that the worker has a better life, it’s easier for locators to attract talent, retain that talent, and make that talent more productive. It’s a multi-pronged benefit from one solution

“Property development in the Philippines is not for the faint of heart,” says Rafael Fernandez de Mesa, head of Aboitiz InfraCapital Economic Estates. “It’s quite challenging to acquire land, to have it permitted, to plan, and to construct it. But we had been doing it over the past 30 years, so we had a solid team that was very focused on how to get it done.”

With design firm AECOM Philippines on board, LIMA Estate is master-planned to incorporate diverse housing solutions from worker dormitories to mid-income and executive homes. Along with architecture firm PGAA Creative Design, AECOM has allocated a high ratio of open spaces to the estate, propagating local species.

The residences speak to a harsh reality in the Philippines: Industrial employees often face long commutes that impact their quality of life.

“Our inspiration was, ‘How do we improve the lives of these people?’ The solution was to bring housing inside,” says Fernandez de Mesa. “At the same time, we’re contributing to sustainability because we’ve reduced the number of trips. Now that the worker has a better life, it’s easier for locators to attract talent, retain that talent, and make that talent more productive. It’s a multi-pronged benefit from one solution.”

To prove its commitment to climate action, Aboitiz InfraCapital responded several years ago to the Philippine Green Building Council’s call for participants in a pilot programme to certify districts. “When nobody wanted to take a risk, they did it,” notes the council’s chief executive Christopher Dela Cruz.

The collaboration culminated in LIMA Estate achieving the 5-Star Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence (BERDE) District Certification in 2022.

“You can imagine how much information there is to gather in a development with 900 hectares,” says Fernandez de Mesa. “The challenge was to put all the information together, but once we were able to do that, it became very evident how we were already a very sustainable development.”

Approximately 21 percent of LIMA Estate’s energy supply is sourced from renewables. LIMA EnerZone, which generates and distributes power in the estate, is part of AboitizPower, one of the Philippines’ major renewable energy suppliers with an array of hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, and thermal facilities nationwide.

“That gives us a level of expertise instantly,” says Fernandez de Mesa. “Other than providing a solution of locating in a place that draws energy from renewable sources, we can also offer advisory services to locators on how to run their facilities and their equipment more efficiently to reduce power consumption.”

A substantial chunk of LIMA’s total power demand derives from contestable customers who source 19.26 megawatts of renewable energy from AboitizPower’s Retail Electricity Supplier. The estate’s 30-hectare central business district utilises 63 percent off-site renewable energy.

The rooftops across LIMA Estate have a footprint large enough to support solar panel systems capable of generating a total of 21.5 megawatts of power. The Outlets at Lipa, an outdoor shopping mall within the CBD, features a 1.5-megawatt-peak (MWp) rooftop solar panel system that offsets 31,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year.

LIMA Water recently mounted a sewage treatment plant with solar panels capable of generating 146-megawatt hours (MWh) of power annually. The subsidiary of Aboitiz InfraCapital has reduced non-revenue water to just 5%, well below the ecozone authorities’ acceptable level of 20 percent, through various programs.

Also, the national environment department has authorised LIMA Water to operate a laboratory that tests water quality and effluent for the estate and communities beyond.

“We are, in essence, almost practically a city,” says Fernandez de Mesa. “We’re running all the services that a city would run.”

The construction arm of Aboitiz Group utilised rocks and other naturally occurring materials onsite to build retaining walls and waterway enhancements. The choice of precast systems also featured recyclable materials while plastic waste was collected from locators for conversion into useful eco-bricks.

A circular economy is still at play in the estate. Aboitiz InfraCapital recently equipped its sustainability centre with a food waste composter, producing fertiliser for farmers living nearby.

Decarbonisation efforts are making headway with Aboitiz InfraCapital converting the estate’s public vehicles to pointto-point electric buses, powered by LIMA EnerZone’s fastcharging EV stations. The transition to non-fossil-fuelled transport should be completed by 2025.

Aboitiz Data Innovations, the Group’s Singapore-based tech startup, has partnered with consultancy Surbana Jurong to develop an intelligent roadmap for the estate. This has led to the establishment of a central command centre, alongside state-of-the-art cameras, that collects data across the estate.

These initiatives respond to growing consumer demands for genuine commitment over greenwashing. “Sustainability and smart technology are really at the top of the list of what companies are looking for because their stakeholders are requiring it of them,” says Fernandez de Mesa.

A supporter of the government’s overseas trade missions, LIMA Estate has attracted 179 companies, representing around 71,000 workers. Locators span light to medium industries, primarily in electronics, automotives, food, and consumer goods.

Aboitiz InfraCapital truly aims to “create employment opportunities for fellow countrymen,” notes Clifford Academia, vice president for operations at LIMA Estate. In 2024, Japanese clutch manufacturer Ogura relocated its operations from Laguna province to the estate, with company president Toshio Takahashi lauding its “comprehensive infrastructure development solutions.”

LIMA Estate will double its size to 1,500 hectares over the next decade, with a current 110-hectare industrial expansion underway. Having rapidly sold out its initial phase of commercial lots, the estate’s business hub is gearing up for a 40-hectare expansion, slated to begin in 2024. In 2023, the government approved Proclamation No. 204 designating several parcels of land in Malvar for the estate’s expansion.

Fernandez De Mesa acknowledges that the hardworking Filipino workforce is the “lifeblood” of industrial development as he looks to the next eras of the estate’s growth.

“At the end of the day, our customers are from around the world, and they have many choices of where to locate their businesses,” he says. “When we look at who we’re competing against, we’re not necessarily looking in the Philippines. We’re actually looking at the region. And it’s important for us to be able to stay ahead of trends and address the needs of our customers.

The original version of this article appeared in PropertyGuru Property Report Magazine Issue No. 185 on issuu and Magzter. Write to our editors at [email protected].