Good evening. It is my pleasure to join you today and to speak at the 4th Singapore Sustainability Symposium (S3) 2017.

 

The S3 brings together thought leaders, industry leaders, academics from academia, businesses, and the people sector to share new ideas and explore new possibilities in addressing the challenges faced by urban cities around the world. Since the symposium first started in 2014, S3 has evolved into an international platform for thought leadership for urban sustainability solutions that involves multiple stakeholders and cuts across multiple disciplines and knowledge domains.

 

Sustainability is anchored in our ability to identify solutions that creatively minimise the trade-offs we have to make, and yet allow us to achieve maximum aims in multiple domains. In the context of our city-state, it is a commitment to balanced growth that benefits both the current and future generations, as well as a commitment to creating a high quality living environment. Often, such sustainability solutions require that we are able to see different, seemingly disjointed parts of our economy and society function as part of an integrated, interconnected ecosystem.

 

Such systems are often complex; increasingly, the Government will come to depend on the different components within this ecosystem – from our businesses, to academia, and even down to our average man on the street, to help make sense of this complexity and create new opportunities that can help us achieve sustainable and resilient growth. How well we succeed in capitalising on these opportunities then depends on whether we are able to create the right frameworks to recognise, nurture, and, with the right partners, to grow these ideas and translate them into actual initiatives that benefit Singapore and our citizens. 

 

Today, I wish to talk about the role of civic partnerships, in line with the theme, and engagement in driving some of these urban solutions for a sustainable future, and how the Government can play its part in supporting these ideas to fruition.

 

 

Singapore has had a long-standing commitment to sustainability. In fact, our journey towards sustainability started in the 1960s, when Mr Lee Kuan Yew laid down the foundations for a clean and green Singapore, even before it was vogue at that time to be green. Today, we are proud to call ourselves a “City in a Garden”; we started with “Garden in a City”. Even as we grappled with a fledgling economy and uncertain times, we consciously moved towards cleaner sources of energy, dedicated our resources to cleaning up our major waterways, as well as growing our City in a Garden. The cleaning of the major waterways resulted in what we have today – the Marina Barrage – becoming another source of water as a reservoir for our use. Today, Mr Lee’s foresight and conviction in building an environmentally sustainable Singapore continues to guide our city planning, and has become an integral part of our identity and of course the Singapore brand name we know so well.

 

And we continue to strive for sustainability, not only because of the world we wish our future generations can inherit, but because we believe we stand to reap the rewards for doing so in very tangible ways. The Singapore Story is testament to our belief that economic growth and sustainability are themselves not mutually exclusive, but instead are mutually reinforcing and beneficial – our commitment to a sustainable, high quality living environment has made Singapore a choice location for foreign businessmen and multi-national companies, which in turn have brought in more investments and economic opportunities. A good living environment is itself an important strength of our economic pillar. But this however, has not been an easy path to forge, and we see many other cities where economic growth has come at a price of compromising environmental sustainability and quality of life for its residents.

 

At the end of the day, we strive towards sustainability also because this is the only home we have – Singapore, at once a city and also a state, is the microcosm within which we have to support our economy, and to house 5.5 million residents in a liveable and sustainable environment. We only have this space of less than 800km2, around 719 km2 to be precise, and we are very aware that Singaporeans cannot run away from the consequences of any over-consumption or pollution.

 

 

We are well aware of the constraints that Singapore faces, and the careful, methodical approach we have taken towards urban planning, which has guided our development thus far. While Singapore has prided itself on careful planning and judicious land use so far, it is perhaps time to reframe the problem statement to focus on how we can shift gears to continue our sustainability journey. Singapore, precisely because it is at once a city and also a country, presents a wonderful opportunity for policy makers and urban planners all around the world. Given their densities and close proximity to people, cities remain an ideal test bed for experimenting with and implementing new urban solutions. Singapore’s small size means that any policy changes can be quickly implemented, scaled up and also easily monitored, and that we have the chance to observe the impact that these tweaks have at the national level. So our size is also our advantage in this aspect. And the fact that we have one single layer of government means that everything can be taken very quickly, in terms of feedback, and implemented very rapidly.

 

We have no lack of ideas and innovative urban solutions – our challenge, is how we can create the right environment for the generation of inter-disciplinary urban solutions, to recognise the winning ideas, and to be able to rapidly scale them up. In particular, let me suggest three ways we can do so. We want to look at how we can create a conducive environment for experimentation; secondly, how we can bring together many different partners; and thirdly, how we can put in place the necessary frameworks and resources to guide and scale up these successful urban solutions.

 

 

First and foremost, we must always remember that any innovation or breakthrough in the development of successful, sustainable urban solutions stems from a willingness to start small, to try, and if it fails, to start all over and try again because there is never a guarantee of success when you start on something that is new. It is this spirit of experimentation and entrepreneurship that serves as the precursor to discovering and developing these urban solutions – and we are aware of the importance of cultivating the right attitude towards innovation from a very young age.

 

I am glad to see NTU’s efforts in grooming and incubating the next generation of sustainability entrepreneurs. Through NTUitive, which is NTU’s innovation and enterprise company, NTU manages the University’s intellectual property, promotes innovation, supports entrepreneurship and facilitates the commercialization of these research findings. Most importantly, NTUitive has a pool of mentors with very strong professional backgrounds and experience in guiding and building businesses to help aspiring entrepreneurs create sustainable businesses out of the ideas that they have from the research findings. Through these efforts, NTU has provided a safe, familiar space for like-minded individuals to work, network, share synergies and create alliances to enhance each other’s value propositions.

 

One such success is EverComm Pte Ltd, an energy analytics solution start-up founded by NTU graduates Ted Chen and Koko Phyo. NTUitive has been incubating this company since 2013, and the founders continue to retain close ties with several researchers at the university. With the support of NTUitive and other government funding agencies, the start-up has successfully developed complete turnkey solutions for identifying and quantifying energy savings for manufacturers, including but not limited to energy usage data collection, data migration, analytics and insights reporting. In fact, EverComm’s technology has the potential to cut a manufacturer’s total energy consumption anywhere between 1% – 10%, which can be quite significant, given that a typical manufacturer’s electricity bill ranges from between US$3 million to US$6 million. Since its inception, the company has generated US$1 million in revenues from the provision of smart energy solutions to major MNC clients in Singapore, Thailand, as well as Taiwan. One of the co-founders, Ted Chen, was even identified in the Forbes 30 under 30 to watch in 2016. So clearly, their attention is on how we can be more sustainable and how smart data can help to guide our energy consumption. My heartiest congratulations to NTU, NTUitive and EverComm on these achievements, and I look forward to more of such successes and stories like these to share in the years to come.

 

Second, we must take a deliberate approach in bringing the right partners together. The convening of this symposium, and the World Cities Summit organised by the Centre for Liveable Cities and Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, serve to bring together thought leaders across different fields to share their insights into their journey of sustainable development or urban solutions. But it is another matter altogether to create the right eco-system that can help grow these thought leaders, and provide the right platforms for experts from different, varied fields to come together regularly, that can provide, promote and sustain the cross pollination of ideas on a much more regular basis.

 

One such example we have is JTC’s first eco-business park – Clean Tech Park, which is an R&D and test-bedding site for early adoption of technology and solutions. The first phase of this park, called CleanTech One, was launched in 2014, and today houses a vibrant research and test-bedding ecosystem for companies and institutes to collaborate and formulate scalable urban solutions. Clean Tech Park is meant to eventually serve as an integrated “living laboratory” that fosters a conducive, clustered environment or encourages the cross-fertilisation of ideas and knowledge, as well as collaboration between industry and academia on innovative urban solutions. It is a place where we can really test out these solutions in real life.

 

Already, the Energy Research Institute @NTU (ERI@N), which was housed in CleanTech One, has been involved in the research and design of CleanTech Two, achieving a high energy performance of the building by design. Since 2012, ERI@N has worked with industry partners such as Akzo Nobel, Sky Cool and Nippon Paints to develop “Cool Coatings” that can reduce heat gain from building rooftops and facades, reducing the energy needed for cooling systems. Partnering with SGL Carbon, ERI@N has also piloted an energy-efficient “chilled ceiling” cooling concept technology, which can cut energy use for cooling by about 26% – that is quite significant. This technology has been operational since late 2012 at ERI@N’s own office in the CleanTech One building.

 

Moving forward, we hope that these eco-business parks become a focal point for scientists, businesses and all other collaborators to test-bed your ideas and refine them into smart and sustainable urban solutions which can also be shared with other cities.

 

 

Last, but not least, we must have in place the right funding and support in order to see these partnerships bear fruit. Ideas, no matter how good, can only be replicated and scaled up with the appropriate funding and support frameworks and to have the resources in place. To foster a conducive environment for businesses and environmental research and technology to flourish, we have put in much thought in shaping the overall R&D landscape in this area.

 

Today, the Ministry of National Development (MND) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) lead the Urban Solutions and Sustainability (USS) Domain under the Research and Innovation Enterprise (RIE) 2020 Plan to ensure that Singapore stays at the forefront of research and development into innovative urban solutions. With its vision of creating a “Green City, Best Home”, this multi-agency team aims to develop integrated R&D solutions across the energy, water and land domains, which is one of Singapore’s efforts to coordinate our strategies across government agencies to improve Singapore’s liveability and sustainability.

 

By fostering strong partnerships with the industries and research scientists to co-create innovative and integrated solutions, USS agencies will strive towards establishing Singapore as an international hub for sustainable urban solutions. To better support this, we will continue to work with our economic and research agencies to see how these ideas can be better supported to fruition. We will continue to evolve and the conversation will continue.

 

 

Most important of all, we must always acknowledge that no one has a monopoly on good ideas. Sometimes, the best ideas are, in fact, the simplest – and the most powerful and impactful urban solutions can simply just be insights into consumer behaviour or patterns, or policies incorporating straightforward behavioural tweaks, incentivising certain behaviours. These can form the basis of urban solutions that we as individuals can pursue in our personal capacity, at our workplaces, in our own homes and within our communities to lead more sustainable lifestyles. More often than not, it is members within our community that demonstrate the most creativity in reimagining how we can adjust our habits and lead to a more sustainable lifestyle; hence, the importance of civic engagement. 

 

I would like to share 2 examples of how communities have re-cast the way they live and interact with their surroundings in a more sustainable manner.

 

Our Community in Bloom Gardens are a great example of how our communities are making creative use of shared community spaces within our residential estates in our dense urban environment, creating an entire, self-sustaining value chain, and promoting community bonding – all at the same time! We get residents that come together; they do community gardening, they bond but yet inculcate a sense of conservation. Community gardeners from Sembawang Zone E, together with 14 other community gardens in Sembawang, actually produced over 760kg of vegetables in 2016, which helped to feed some of the families in need in the estate under the Green Harvest Programme by North West CDC.

 

Another ground-up initiative, which is called “Repair Kopitiam”, was by the Sustainable Living Lab to combat the buy-and-throw-away culture in Singapore. Their monthly events around the island aim to promote the repair culture locally, and it also serves as a focal point to bring the community together. These free events are open to all, where “Repair Coaches” impart fundamental repair and maintenance skills by guiding participants through the process of repairing their faulty household items. By promoting repairing, and by imparting the necessary skills for simple repair works for household items and appliances, “Repair Kopitiam” represents a movement towards a more sustainable form of consumerism – and if we can spread this to more communities, we will be one step closer towards achieving our Sustainable Singapore vision of a Zero Waste Nation!

 

Recognising the potential role and agency that communities have in spearheading these urban solutions, our government agencies are also placing renewed emphasis on making available the support and resources for these placemaking and community bonding projects – such as through MCCY’s Our Singapore Fund. These are also great ways to interest youth and to start them thinking of the many, many ways in which we can make the shift towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Hopefully, these will also serve to inspire them to become more involved in being part of the larger eco-system within Singapore to explore and source for sustainable, urban solutions.

 

Apart from our typical partners in this sustainability journey – our businesses, our academics and our researchers – there is a wider community of potential partners that may remain untapped, and there is definitely more that we can do to engender and encourage the larger civic society on sustainable urban solutions. So, it is my challenge to everyone seated in this hall today to think more deeply about the work you do in your respective domains, and how these processes could benefit from an exchange with civic society and the larger community. 

 

On that note, I would like to once again thank NTU for organising this dialogue which brings together experts from Singapore and across the world, and brings forth the discussion among all the various stakeholders to come together and propose solutions that we can all consider. The discussions here will also be shared with mayors at the upcoming World Cities Summit Mayors Forum in Suzhou in two weeks’ time. I wish all of you a wonderful symposium.

 

Thank you very much for having me here.