Humans of Sustainability: Nikki and Her Story

Sustainability is a long and winding journey. But with a sense of curiosity and the right questions, the path is more fun and fulfilling. 

Meet Jeanne Nicole Lizares, also known as Nikki, the Senior AVP for Sustainability at Security Bank Corporation.

Nikki’s sustainability story began at a very young age as she discovered the beauty of the coral reefs in the province of Negros Occidental, her hometown. While she was snorkeling, she uncovered its deepest and saddest secrets – the coral reefs were already severely damaged due to dynamite fishing and overfishing. 

Fortunately, a conservation effort was underway to build marine protected areas. “You could say, the reefs slowly grew along with me, and today I bear witness to how conservation efforts, through the cooperation of both public and private stakeholders, can succeed,” said Nikki.

However, her exposure to conservation also showed the stark realities of the impacts of climate change, such as rising seas in the local communities, continued loss of habitats and livelihoods with increasingly extreme weather conditions, food insecurity, and more. Nikki realized that grassroots conservation efforts needed to be supported on a much larger systemic scale and that climate change is very much a socio-economic problem as it is an environmental one.

These eye-opening issues are what lead her down the career path of sustainability. For her higher education, Nikki majored in Environmental Science with the initial intent of going to law school and minored in Journalism in support of her interest in science communication. This brought her to her internship at a resort in Coron, Palawan, creating educational modules for tourists and visitors, which showed Nikki the need and relevance of basic sustainability knowledge everywhere.

Through the years, questions such as “how can people and nature be brought back into the ‘mainstream economy?’” or rather, “how can the economy be harnessed to serve people and protect the planet?” are what led Nikki to where she is now.

Her career path from research, to foundation work, then to corporate through ESG ratings and ESG practice in the finance industry somewhat reflects the expansion of sustainability over the past decade, as well as how we see and understand sustainability today. “The sphere of sustainability is very rapidly evolving, and I believe, in a good way, especially here in the Philippines. We are starting to see, more and more, how crucial it is not just to our survival, but how we develop and thrive as a people and a nation,” she said. 

For Nikki, sustainability is no longer “just CSR” or limited to charitable and philanthropic acts, but the upcoming standard of doing business responsibly. She believes that banks, and the financial sector in general, play a vital role in cultivating the environment for sustainability practices through the values, and by translation of the policies, that they champion and adopt.