The conference room at Ascott Makati carries the scent of fresh coffee and the weight of corporate decisions. Executives in pressed shirts lean over a polished mahogany table. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, jeepneys crawl through Makati traffic, diesel fumes mixing with the morning haze. Inside, Marielle Lagulay spreads plant-based menu plans across the table—mushroom adobo, coconut milk curry, jackfruit sisig.

“This is one of the most effective steps you can take to make food and beverage operations more sustainable,” she tells them, her voice steady but pragmatic. “And in many cases, it saves money too.”

The hotel managers nod, understanding finally crystallizing as they shake hands and agree to put in place a policy that will bring more plant-based meals to their properties nationwide. But for Marielle, this moment represents more than just another business meeting—it’s the culmination of a journey that began on a rooftop in floodwater, where an eight-year-old girl first understood the true weight of environmental catastrophe.

The Storm that Shaped Her

Marielle’s earliest memories are intertwined with water—not the gentle rain that nourishes crops, but the violent floods that swept through Metro Manila’s most vulnerable neighborhoods. Her parents had migrated from rural provinces in search of opportunity: her father from a family of farmers in Capiz, her mother from marble quarry workers in Romblon. Like thousands of other poor migrants, they settled in Nangka, Marikina City, a flood-prone area, where rent was cheap and hope hard-earned, and where climate change wasn’t an abstract concept but a recurring nightmare that shaped every aspect of daily life.

“We’re all going through it” became the family’s quiet mantra as they moved from one low-cost rental to another, sometimes staying with relatives kind enough to take them in. Her father worked as a gasoline boy before becoming a carwash attendant, while her mother progressed from packing charcoal briquettes to running a small sari-sari store that helped cover daily expenses. The family’s struggles weren’t unique—missed rent payments, electricity cutoffs, relying on faith healers when medical care was unaffordable, and the constant calculation of which needs would go unmet each week.

But it was Typhoon Ondoy in 2009 that crystallized everything for the eight-year-old Marielle. As floodwaters rose around their community, she watched an entire family swept away by the current, each member disappearing beneath the churning water. Her own family huddled on a neighbor’s rooftop, sharing uncooked noodles through the night, while her father grimly prepared to tie them all to a post so their bodies wouldn’t be carried away if the worst happened. “We could be them,” she thought, a realization that would echo through every storm that followed.

Marikina, celebrated as the country’s cleanest and greenest city, became a site of unimaginable loss when Ondoy claimed hundreds of lives.

Despite years of environmental education— proper waste disposal, recycling, and tree planting drilled into students as prerequisites for good citizenship—their community still suffered devastating destruction. “It made me question why these efforts weren’t enough and what larger forces were at play,” Marielle recalls.

The typhoons kept coming—Pepeng, Yolanda, Ulysses—each one strong enough to devastate families struggling to rebuild. Marielle missed her senior high school final exams because her family was trapped in an evacuation center as another storm struck. Schools reopened, relief goods arrived, and communities were expected to rebuild, knowing they were simply waiting for the next disaster to hit.

“Resilience without systemic change is just survival in disguise,” she reflects, articulating a frustration that would drive her toward the humanities despite practical concerns about career prospects. The Philippines faces an average of 20 storms and typhoons annually, each growing progressively more destructive due to climate change. As Marielle connected her family’s story to countless others across the region, she grasped a larger truth: while typhoons may be natural phenomena, the scale of their destruction is largely man-made, shaped by global systems prioritizing profit over people and planet.

This realization transformed her understanding of environmental action from local initiatives like tree planting to addressing root causes through systemic change. The food system, she learned, ranks among the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, intensifying these storms. Her work in sustainability crystallized around this connection—tackling the forces that leave communities like hers most vulnerable to climate impacts.

The Detective of Opportunity

First grade, public elementary school in Marikina. Twenty-six children crowd around tiny wooden desks, their uniforms varying shades of faded white. The teacher writes simple words on the blackboard—”bata,” “bahay,” “baso”—while most students copy eagerly into worn notebooks. Marielle stares at the letters, their meaning as foreign as hieroglyphs. Around her, classmates’ pencils scratch across paper with confidence she can’t imagine. Her family couldn’t afford preparatory school; she’s starting from zero while others race ahead.

But her teacher saw potential, keeping her after class for extra lessons that helped her leap from the lowest-tier Section 11 to Section 5 by second grade—a transformation that felt like proof that hard work and someone’s belief in you could change your place in the world.

That early lesson sparked what she calls her detective work for opportunity. Elementary school brought the Tulong-Dunong scholarship through a Jesuit priest who recognized potential in kids like her. High school meant Alay ni Ignacio, offering not just financial support but a community that shaped her understanding of leadership. College required another round of scholarship support from Tulong-Dunong through the Commission on Higher Education—each scholarship felt like a lifeline thrown exactly when needed most.

“I learned that when someone gives you a chance, the best way to honor it is by eventually creating chances for others,” she explains. This philosophy would later drive her approach to sustainability work, understanding that systemic change requires both individual opportunity and collective action.

Growing Purpose with Lever Foundation

Manila, 2024. Fresh from graduation, Marielle scrolls through development sector job postings on her laptop. The usual offerings: NGO roles requiring years of experience, government positions with little opportunity for impact. Then she finds that the Lever Foundation is hiring and goes to the organization’s website. Exactly what she’s looking for; she applies.

“Lever’s mission immediately resonated with me,” Marielle notes, though working with the organization challenged her traditional development perspective. “I learned that good intentions alone aren’t enough—effective solutions must be scalable and produce measurable results.”

At Lever, Marielle found more than professional opportunities. She discovered a community of advocates, policymakers, and implementers who care as deeply about people, animals, and the planet as they do about their own goals. “Being part of that community keeps me inspired, grounded, and reminded every day why this work matters so deeply.”

Eight months into her role with Lever, Marielle had secured five major group commitments to advance plant-based foods. Global hotel brands Ascott Philippines and IHG Philippines joined homegrown hospitality group Eco-Hotels in pledging to make 30% of their menus plant-based, with Eco-Hotels quickly completing the transition. Major gaming and resort complexes, Okada and Winford Resort & Casino, issued identical commitments. Each new policy represents a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and animal cruelty and an increase in public health. What energizes Marielle most is watching perspectives evolve.

“Six months ago, many hotel operators saw plant-based options as something for a small niche market, if they thought about it at all,” she explains. “Now I’m having conversations where they’re talking about these options as smart business moves and essential parts of sustainable hospitality.” This mindset change signals durability beyond temporary trends, embedding sustainable thinking into daily operational decisions.

Becoming a True Sustainability Champion

Marielle sits across from hotel managers in yet another conference room. The conversation that once felt impossible— convincing hospitality executives to add sustainable food choices—now happens routinely. Her calendar shows three more similar meetings this week across different hotel operators and restaurant groups.

Marielle’s early experiences with scarcity and environmental uncertainty now serve as assets in her sustainability work. Growing up without financial security or predictability taught her adaptation, empathy, and a stubborn determination to tackle systems making life harder for everyone—people and animals alike. “The climate crisis isn’t just about rising temperatures or melting ice caps,” she emphasizes. “It’s about families like mine who get hit first and hardest when extreme weather destroys what little stability they’ve built.”

Her approach to the work remains deeply personal. The hope she maintains is that through this work, fewer people will face the uncertainty she grew up with, building systems that protect all forms of life.

“Don’t underestimate how your own story connects you to this work,” Marielle notes in closing. “The difficult experiences you’ve faced give you insights that no training program can teach…You’re not just dealing with numbers and data—you’re fighting for real lives and a livable future.”