MSE Committee of Supply 2024


At the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE)'s Committee of Supply debate on 04 March 2024, Minister Grace Fu, Senior Ministers of State Dr Amy Khor and Dr Koh Poh Koon, and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Baey Yam Keng shared the Ministry's key initiatives in creating a clean, green, and resilient shared Singapore.

This year, we are focusing our efforts on enhancing public hygiene to better protect public health and create a thriving urban environment for Singaporeans. We have inherited a clean and green environment from earlier generations, but it is up to us to leave an even better environment for our future generations. In the spirit of the Forward Singapore exercise, we are designating 2024 as the Year of Public Hygiene to inspire collective responsbility and to galvanise a whole-of-nation effort to upkeep our hygiene standards across four key areas: clean environment, safe food, clean air, and clean water.

2024 Announcements: Year of Public Hygiene

Tackling cleanliness hotspots

  • Increase frequency, scale and visibility of enforcement blitzes
  • Four-fold increase in CCTV deployment to enhance deterrence and facilitate enforcement against offenders

Tackling unhygienic public toilets

  • Public Toilets Taskforce to develop solutions and galvanise collective action to improve cleanliness
  • Enhance enforcement on dirty public toilets

Enhancing vector control

  • Pilot thermal technology to improve rat surveillance
  • Expansion of Project Wolbachia-Singapore to 5 additional sites - bringing total coverage to 35% of all households
  • Step up enforcement of poor waste management at food premises and bin centres

Improving indoor air quality to safeguard public health

  • Introduce formaldehyde limits for interior paints

Protecting our supply of clean water

  • Introduce measures to further deter silt discharges into our waterways and reservoirs, and illegal discharge of harmful substances into our public sewerage system

Fostering joint food safety responsibility with industry

  • Refine food safety grading system to recognise food establishments with good track record of food safety and food safety management systems
  • Remove the need for licences for market stalls selling non-food and low-risk food items and vending machines selling pre-packed food

Enhancing industry capability & leveraging technology

  • Opening of industry-led Enviro Tech Innovation Hub (EITH@TP) to advance sustainable cleaning and support our cleaning workforce
  • Explore the use of artificial intelligence-powered video analytics to detect cleaning gaps more quickly

Rallying the community

  • Encourage everyone to play their part through campaigns such as "Keep Singapore Clean" and "Go Green SG"
  • Expand Community Auditor Programme to audit performance of cleaning service providers at private housing estates

Supporting households and businesses to be more resource efficient

  • Enhancement of Climate Friendly Households Programme to encourage all HDB households to switch to energy and water efficient household appliances
  • Expansion of energy labelling scheme to household water heaters and commercial storage refrigerators to help households and businesses make informed energy efficient choices
  • A more streamlined Energy Efficiency Grant for businesses

Greening the public sector's procurement policies

  • Expand scope of tender evaluation points for sustainability to MICE events
  • Inclusion of waste data in future GreenGov.SG reports

Supporting businesses in building waste management competencies

  • New course to train up Zero Waste Managers to champion 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) efforts in their organisations

Reducing packaging waste

  • Commence study to explore feasibility of expanding the Extended Producer Responsibility approach to cover more types of packaging waste, beyond beverage containers

Protecting our coasts

  • Propose new legislation and Code of Practice to support coastal protection measures
  • Conduct site-specific studies at City-East Coast, North-West Coast and Jurong Island to better understand Singapore's coastlines
  • Continue to engage stakeholders on coastal protection efforts, including for Long Island

Strengthening our food safety & security regime

  • Upcoming Food Safety and Security Bill to better protect consumers and safeguard food supply resilience

Working with industry to diversify food import sources

  • Accredited new food import sources in 2023 (e.g. Indonesia for live chickens, Türkiye for eggs)

Playing our part for food supply resilience

  • Piloted a Food Resilience Preparedness Project involving secondary school students to educate them on the importance of food security

Uplifting the local agri-food sector

  • Transform our aquaculture sector through the Singapore Aquaculture Plan, which will embody our collective vision for productive and sustainable aquaculture
  • Partner stakeholders to better match supply and demand for local produce via an industry-led aggregator, as well as develop a uniquely Singaporean fish product
  • Onboard more food establishments to the Farm-To-Table Recognition Programme

Three new hawker centres to open in 2024

  • Woodleigh Village
  • Anchorvale Village
  • Punggol Coast

Empowering our youths

  • Develop and enable a community of future leaders and environmental champions through the Climate Youth Development Programme
  • Empower youths through the #GreenHacks youth panel to co-create policy recommendations on sustainable consumption