Brew­ing with renewed energy, the Phil­ip­pine cof­fee sec­tor is find­ing new pur­pose as it goes bey­ond good beans to grow live­li­hoods, regen­er­ate degraded lands, and link tech­no­logy with cli­mate action and com­munity devel­op­ment.

At the recent 1st Phil­ip­pine Cof­fee Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Con­gress organ­ized by the Phil­ip­pine Cof­fee Board Inc. (PCBI), GCash high­lighted how digital innov­a­tion can turn sus­tain­ab­il­ity goals into real-world gains for farm­ers.

Through GForest—a fea­ture within the GCash app that allows users to earn “green energy points” for every digital trans­ac­tion—Filipi­nos can take part in envir­on­mental action by plant­ing vir­tual trees that trans­late into actual seed­lings on the ground. The ini­ti­at­ive has so far ral­lied 25 mil­lion users, res­ult­ing in more than 4.2 mil­lion trees planted across the Phil­ip­pines.

“We’re show­ing how tech­no­logy can make a tan­gible envir­on­mental impact—from sup­port­ing refor­est­a­tion and agro­forestry efforts to sup­port­ing local com­munit­ies and Filipino cof­fee farm­ers,” said Moya Gan­zon, GCash head of impact innov­a­tion, dur­ing the event.

That evol­u­tion took root when GForest partnered with the PCBI to plant cof­fee trees, a col­lab­or­a­tion that merges refor­est­a­tion and agro­forestry with rural enter­prise. “By plant­ing cof­fee trees, we restore degraded lands, sup­port local eco­nom­ies, and strengthen cli­mate resi­li­ence,” Gan­zon said. “It’s a power­ful value chain where tech­no­logy con­nects users to organ­iz­a­tions and com­munit­ies, driv­ing real change.”

To date, GCash and PCBI have planted more than 230,000 cof­fee trees and are tar­get­ing 1.6 mil­lion by 2028. The ini­ti­at­ive sup­ports over 600 farm­ing fam­il­ies across 10 sites nation­wide—includ­ing Benguet, Cavite, and Basilan— help­ing restore upland eco­sys­tems while giv­ing farm­ers a new source of income. Har­vests from these cof­fee trees are sold dir­ectly by farm­ers, with 100 per­cent of profits going to them.

A model for sus­tain­able impact

GCash ensures that each tree planted through GForest has a long-term pur­pose and a high chance of sur­vival. “We only work with reput­able part­ners vet­ted for sci­ence-based refor­est­a­tion,” Gan­zon said, cit­ing the Uni­versity of the Phil­ip­pines Los Baños, Sil­li­man Uni­versity, the ABS-CBN Found­a­tion, and WWF-Phil­ip­pines among their col­lab­or­at­ors.

All part­ners sub­mit site- and spe­cies-spe­cific pro­pos­als and handle quarterly main­ten­ance and mon­it­or­ing, allow­ing GCash to main­tain a tar­get sur­vival rate of at least 90 per­cent.

GForest con­tin­ues to expand its envir­on­mental scope through three tracks: man­groves for coastal pro­tec­tion, upland trees for water­shed res­tor­a­tion, and agro­forestry to sup­port local live­li­hoods. Part­ner­ships with organ­iz­a­tions such as Friends of Hope and the PCBI con­nect these efforts to both envir­on­mental pro­tec­tion and rural devel­op­ment.

To fur­ther address its own envir­on­mental foot­print, GCash is align­ing its sus­tain­ab­il­ity roadmap with the Ayala Group and Globe’s Net Zero 2050 goals. By the end of this year, the com­pany plans to imple­ment new envir­on­mental and sup­ply chain policies to reduce green­house gas emis­sions across oper­a­tions.

Enga­ging users through aware­ness and edu­ca­tion

Part of GForest’s suc­cess lies in how it turns ordin­ary digital habits into mean­ing­ful cli­mate action. Each time users pay bills, buy mobile load, or send money through the GCash app, they earn “green energy points.”

“It’s a simple but power­ful way to show that small actions add up,” Gan­zon said. “Users see the dif­fer­ence they make and are encour­aged to keep build­ing greener habits.”

To deepen envir­on­mental lit­er­acy, GForest also fea­tures more than 50 nat­ive and endemic tree spe­cies, each with its own “fun fact” card explain­ing its eco­lo­gical role and plant­ing loc­a­tion. “We make envir­on­mental sci­ence relat­able,” Gan­zon said. “We want people to know not just that they planted a tree— but what kind of tree, where it is, and why it mat­ters.”

With over half a mil­lion vis­its to GForest each day, the plat­form has become one of the coun­try’s most act­ive sus­tain­ab­il­ity engage­ment tools.

Align­ing policy and pur­pose

The con­fer­ence also under­scored how part­ner­ships like GForest’s cof­fee ini­ti­at­ive align with broader national efforts to strengthen the cof­fee sec­tor. PCBI dir­ector Manny Tor­re­jon emphas­ized the need to bridge pro­ductiv­ity gaps and strengthen the value chain “from seed to cup.” At the same time, Sen­ator Fran­cis “Kiko” Pangil­inan called for col­lab­or­a­tion between the gov­ern­ment, private sec­tor, and com­munit­ies.

“When we move in one dir­ec­tion—toward sus­tain­ab­il­ity—real change hap­pens,” Pangil­inan said. “Farm­ers should not just sur­vive; they should thrive.”

Agri­cul­ture under­sec­ret­ary Cheryl Marie Natividad-Caballero echoed the same vis­ion, out­lining the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture’s Phil­ip­pine Cof­fee Industry Roadmap, which includes P82 mil­lion worth of com­munity-based nurs­er­ies across 10 regions and the use of DNA (deoxyribo­nuc­leic acid) pro­fil­ing and geo­graphic indic­a­tions for local cof­fee vari­et­ies.

Mean­while, DTI assist­ant sec­ret­ary Grace Bal­uyan high­lighted how shared ser­vice facil­it­ies and innov­a­tion pro­grams help small cof­fee enter­prises move up the value chain, not­ing that 5,502 MSMEs were assisted last year. “A kilo of beans can become a proudly local brand,” she said.

A shared com­mit­ment

For Gan­zon, these aligned efforts show how tech­no­logy can serve as a bridge—not just between users and sus­tain­ab­il­ity, but between pro­gress and inclu­sion. “GCash is one piece of a much big­ger puzzle,” she said. “Our goal is to use tech­no­logy to bring every­one together—gov­ern­ment, private sec­tor, and com­munit­ies—for the com­mon good.”

The story of GForest is one of col­lab­or­a­tion and con­tinu­ity: digital users turn­ing clicks into trees, farm­ers turn­ing seed­lings into live­li­hoods, and part­ners turn­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity into shared suc­cess. As Gan­zon puts it, “When you use GForest, you’re not just plant­ing a tree—you’re help­ing build a future where both people and the planet can grow.”