Public sector's green effort priotises single-use items

Govt's first green report card details how it plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2045

- Lynda Hong

The public sector is prioritising reducing single-use items such as bottled water for meetings and disposables for dine-in meals, and seeking to replace potable water with non-potable water for irrigation, general washing and cooling.

These are some of the moves the public sector is employing to improve environmental sustainability, according to the inaugural GreenGov.SG report, which detailed carbon emissions, as well as water and electricity usage by the public sector and its assets, which includes office buildings, healthcare facilities, schools, public utilities installations, public transport infrastructure and vehicles.

Government agencies are also reducing the number of lifts operating at non-peak hours, and installing more energy-efficient lighting and air-conditioners.

Launching the report on Dec 15 at Singapore Polytechnic, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Baey Yam Keng said it publicly tracks the progress in the use of electricity and water, as well as emissions that would chart towards net-zero ambitions in 2045 - five years ahead of the national target.

The report published by the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, the first such report in South-east Asia, showed that the sector accounted for 7.2 per cent of total carbon emissions produced in Singapore in FY2021, going by the latest figure provided by the National Climate Change Secretariat.

In FY2022, the public sector emitted less carbon 3.7 million tonnes, 5.3 per cent less than FY2020 mainly due to the closure of the Tuas Incineration Plant in 2022. Collection of this data started in 2020.