Feedback requested for a Sustainable Singapore

[update: at mid-point of the feedback gathering process, not many voices for our wild shores. Please speak up for our shores.]

Here's an opportunity to speak up for our wild places ...


From the Sustainable Singapore page on the MEWR website:

As a responsible member of the international community, Singapore would want to play our part in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. We would also wish to sustain economic growth and maintain our quality of life. By being more efficient in the way we use resources, Singapore would be contributing towards reducing carbon emissions while positioning ourselves well for a more carbon-constrained world that may emerge if ongoing negotiations on climate change result in a post-2012 global agreement.

The vision:

Sustainable development for Singapore means being able to support future economic and population growth while maintaining a quality living environment that is clean, green and healthy.

The vision for Singapore is to be a lively and liveable global city – a city that is distinctive in its ability to offer a unique combination of economic opportunity, vibrant lifestyle and quality environment, for a cosmopolitan population, providing a good home for current and future generations of Singaporeans. It would also be a city that continues to be attractive to the foreign talent and investments which help us to grow the economy and high-value jobs.

Priority Areas:

To achieve this vision and address the domestic and international challenges which are emerging, the IMCSD will focus its efforts on three priority areas:

• Resource management
• Pollution control
• Quality of the physical environment.

Concurrently, further efforts will be made on two supporting fronts –

• encouraging people and industries to adopt practices that are sustainable in the long term and
• developing new capabilities and technologies which optimise resources and improve environmental performance.

Our initiatives:

We should make our existing buildings more energy and resource efficient, as they form the bulk of our built environment.

To further distinguish Singapore as a City in a Garden, new areas such as skyrise greenery, and measures to better document and protect existing biodiversity are being studied too.

Resource efficiency (i.e. energy efficiency, water efficiency and waste minimisation and recycling) will be actively promoted among industry and businesses.

Efforts to encourage greater use of public transport contribute to sustainable development since public transport not only minimises land requirements but is more energy efficient than other transport modes.

Give your Feedback

• What else can the Government do to ensure Singapore continues to be a lively and liveable city?
• What can ordinary Singaporeans do to support a sustainable Singapore?

Links to media reports on the wildsingapore news blog

Wanted: Public's ideas for a greener Singapore
Feedback from the ground to shape 10-year programme
Tania Tan, Straits Times 29 Jul 08;

Sustainable if costs don’t tip the scales
Today Online 29 Jul 08;