Sustainability Practices in Built Environment in Singapore

Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling asked the Minister for National Development what are some of the areas in which the Ministry has begun adopting sustainability practices in Singapore.

As part of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, we are making our urban environment more green and sustainable, with ambitious steps on three fronts.

First, we are transforming Singapore into a City in Nature. We have been launching new parks which feature more lush vegetation and natural landscapes, the most recent being Bukit Gombak Park and Phase 1 of Pasir Panjang Park. We have also announced new nature corridors, such as Clementi and Bukit Batok Nature Corridors, which will strengthen ecological connectivity in these areas.

Second, we are making our buildings, HDB towns, and districts even more sustainable. We are committed to raising our environmental sustainability standards under the latest edition of the Singapore Green Building Masterplan. Last week, BCA launched its latest edition of the Green Mark scheme, which is one of the world’s leading green building certifications. The refreshed scheme raises our standards in energy performance, and places greater emphasis on other important sustainability outcomes. These include designing for maintainability, reducing embodied carbon across a building’s life cycle, using smart technologies, enhancing a building’s resilience to climate change, and creating healthier environments for building users. We have also developed a new Super Low Energy (SLE) standard for residential buildings, which will be awarded to residential buildings that achieve at least 60% improvement in energy efficiency over 2005 levels.

Residents of existing HDB towns can also look forward to their towns becoming more sustainable via the HDB Green Towns Programme. Over the next 10 years, residents can look forward to more green features that can improve their quality of life. Some of these initiatives include the introduction of more greenery on the top decks of selected multi-storey carparks and piloting the use of cool paint on the façade of HDB blocks to reduce ambient temperature.

Third, we are driving R&D in urban sustainability. For example, our Cities of Tomorrow R&D programme supports R&D to address urban sustainability challenges. We are also initiating a Marine Climate Change Science programme, which will advance the core sciences of marine climate change, and develop solutions to mitigate impacts, such as rising sea levels, increasing sea surface temperatures and extreme storm events.

We will press ahead with our sustainability efforts under the Green Plan, in partnership with the private sector, research institutions and the community.