Lionheart Farms Wins Runner-Up for Best Coconut CSR Program at 2026 COINS Awards
Lionheart Farms Philippines Corporation was named Runner-up for Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program for Coconut at the 2026 Coconut Industry Sustainability (COINS) Awards, held September 11, 2026, at the Philippine International Convention Center as part of the 40th National Coconut Week.
The Philippine Coconut Authority’s Regions III and MIMAROPA offices invited Lionheart to accept its Regional Awardee honor, saying the company's presence would, in the PCA’s words, help inspire other businesses to adopt similar practices. The COINS criteria, set by the Department of Labor and Employment’s Bureau of Working Conditions, covered occupational safety and health, labor standards compliance, worker welfare, farmer empowerment, community development, and program inclusivity.
“To be recognized among the country’s top CSR programs in coconut is meaningful, but the credit belongs to the tappers, farmers, and communities of Southern Palawan who make this program real every day,” said Christian Eyde Moeller, CEO and Co-Founder of Lionheart Farms. “This nomination reflects work that PCA, our development partners, and our people have built together since 2016.”
What Does Lionheart Farms’ CSR Model Actually Do?
The company built its CSR approach around a simple problem in coconut farming: farmers sit at the start of the value chain but usually capture the smallest share of its value.
Lionheart began operations in 2016 on a 3,500-hectare coconut farm in the Municipality of Rizal, Southern Palawan, backed by an initial $50 million investment in infrastructure and machinery. Its Partner Farm Program extends the same agronomy support, harvest scheduling, quality protocols, and payment terms to independent smallholder farms across southern Palawan, rather than treating outside growers as separate suppliers.
The operation runs as one connected system, from harvesting coconut flower sap to processing and global distribution. It holds SMETA, BRCGS food safety, and organic certifications, with Fair Trade certification targeted for mid-2027.
What Impact Has the Program Had on Local Communities?
Lionheart Farms has become one of the largest employers in Palawan province, offering at least minimum wage, social services, pensions, and health insurance to nearly its entire host community. In the Municipality of Rizal, poverty incidence has fallen from 65 percent to 25 percent since the company began operating there. The company’s bio-organic fertilizer production, which runs at roughly 600,000 kilos a month, has also pulled in local suppliers and spurred small businesses in construction, catering, and vehicle maintenance around Rizal.
Gabay Kalinga Foundation, Lionheart’s CSR arm, runs education, healthcare, and livelihood programs in Southern Palawan, including tutorial programs, book caravans, medical and dental missions, and medicine support.
“For communities in Rizal, Palawan, access to education and healthcare creates opportunities, strengthens families, and improves quality of life,” said Archie Espinosa, Head and Program Manager of Gabay Kalinga Foundation. “Through Gabay Kalinga Foundation, the CSR arm of Lionheart Farms, we bring learning opportunities and essential health services closer to underserved communities through tutorial programs, book caravans, IEC activities, medical and dental missions, health awareness, and medicine support. These initiatives help empower children, support families, and build healthier, more capable, and resilient communities that reflect Lionheart Farms’ commitment to creating meaningful and lasting impact in Rizal.”
Why Does the Judging Criteria Matter?
The 2026 COINS Awards also clearly emphasized sustainability's social side.
The Department of Labor and Employment, through the Bureau of Working Conditions, noted that the CSR criteria covered occupational safety and health, labor standards compliance, worker welfare, coconut farmer empowerment, community development, and program inclusivity.
That framework reflects a simple idea: sustainable agriculture must work for people as well as the land.
Lionheart's approach brings those pieces together through regenerative farming, community programs, farmer partnerships, and responsible business operations. Its broader sustainability framework covers economic resilience, environmental integrity, good governance, and social well-being, and the company has also integrated the traditional elder structure of Palawan's Indigenous communities into its own decision-making, using it for dialogue and conflict resolution rather than treating it as a formality.
The result is a CSR model rooted in operations rather than separated from them.
What Can Other Coconut Businesses Learn From This?
The most useful part of Lionheart’s model isn’t any single program. It’s how the pieces connect: farmers tie into markets, farming ties into regeneration, and production ties into traceability. Coconut businesses across the Philippines face the same basic questions. How do farmers earn more? How does the land stay productive? How does a growing business stay accountable to the communities it operates in?
Lionheart’s answer, as its CEO puts it, is to create value at each point in the chain, for the farmer, the community, the land, and the people who buy what the farm produces. The company frames recognition like the COINS award as a starting point, not an endpoint, since a CSR model proves itself only through what other businesses do with it.
What is the COINS Award?
The Coconut Industry Sustainability (COINS) Awards recognize sustainability, enterprise development, innovation, and corporate social responsibility in the Philippine coconut sector. The 2026 edition ran under the theme “Regenerating the Coconut Economy, Future-Proofing the Coconut Value Chain” and took place during the 40th National Coconut Week.
What award did Lionheart Farms win?
Lionheart Farms received Runner-up for Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program for Coconut at the 2026 COINS Awards, held September 11, 2026, at the Philippine International Convention Center.
What is the Gabay Kalinga Foundation?
Gabay Kalinga Foundation is Lionheart Farms’ CSR arm, focused on education, livelihood, and community empowerment programs for farmers and their communities in Southern Palawan.
Where does Lionheart Farms operate?
Lionheart Farms operates a coconut farm in the Municipality of Rizal, Southern Palawan, Philippines, and runs a Partner Farm Program that supports independent smallholder farms across the region.
