Speech by SMS Amy Khor - Committee of Supply 2025

4 March 2025

Transcript of speech delivered by SMS Amy Khor at MSE's Committee of Supply debate on 4 March 2025.

Madam Chair,

Introduction

Recent events such as forest fires in California and heatwaves across Southeast Asia have shown that climate change demands decisive action.
We will advance green initiatives, improve energy efficiency and promote resource resilience to progress towards our ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to achieve Net Zero by 2050.

Update on Green Government

Associate Professor Razwana Begum asked how MSE will promote sustainable practices and technologies across the public and private sectors. Let me share the Government’s efforts to achieve our net zero targets.
The Government has committed to achieve net zero emissions around 2045, five years ahead of our national target.
We published the second edition of the GreenGov.SG report for FY2023 which incorporates waste data and contextualizes the public sector’s resource footprint. This allows us to develop targeted pathways to reduce and remove emissions.
A key strategy to reduce emissions is to improve energy efficiency across different sectors of the economy.
For the public sector, we have earlier announced plans to reduce our Energy Utilisation Index (EUI) by 10% by 2030 from FY2018-FY2020 baseline. As of FY23, we have achieved 3.7% EUI reduction, and we will do more to reach our target.
To bolster our efforts, the Government will from this year, set aside around $300 million for an Energy Efficiency fund for public sector buildings. The fund will invest in worthwhile projects over the next 5 years to improve energy efficiency performance of public sector facilities.
These projects will contribute towards our climate targets, payback through life-cycle cost-savings and generate excess savings for the Government in the long-term.
Eligible projects could include retrofits to energy consuming systems or installation of smart systems to optimise energy efficiency. Public sector facilities that could be covered include office premises, hospitals and MRT stations.
An example of a worthwhile project would be Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s mini-chiller heat recovery system. The system saves 800,000kWh of electricity (or $240,000) a year by replacing energy-consuming electric heaters with heat generated from the mini chiller.
The fund can facilitate the test-bedding of innovative and cost-effective solutions, that could stimulate growth and help build industry capability in energy services for the built environment sector. Public sector leadership in this area could catalyse energy efficiency improvements in the larger stock of private sector buildings.
Besides reducing emissions, another key strategy is to remove residual emissions. NEA is studying solutions to capture carbon emissions at our Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plants.
A pilot project will be launched by 2026 to validate the carbon capture technologies such as amine-based absorption for our WtE plants and to inform our next steps.
We are also looking to leverage government procurement to normalise green initiatives amongst our businesses.
To this end, we announced last year that we would refine our environmental sustainability evaluation criteria for large construction and ICT hardware tenders.
I am pleased to share that from FY 2024, up to 5% of tender evaluation criteria have been set aside for environmental sustainability considerations.
BCA and GovTech have shared the refined sustainability evaluation criteria with government agencies for adoption in their tenders.
We shared last year that we planned to expand our sustainability evaluation criteria for public sector MICE tenders. This will be implemented from FY 2025 for government procurement of events venues and event management services.
Beyond introducing environmental sustainability evaluation criteria in tenders, we are also looking to drive green procurement in other categories such as facility management through incorporating broader environmental sustainability considerations.
For example, JTC is working with agencies to explore incentive payments for facility management vendors who excel in energy and water efficiency in their managed assets.

Energy Efficiency

Associate Professor Razwana and Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked how the Government can support businesses in their efforts to reduce emissions and mitigate climate impacts.
As Mr Gan Thiam Poh mentioned, helping businesses to improve their energy efficiency is key to lowering business costs and improving economic competitiveness.
The Government has introduced support schemes such as the Energy Efficiency Grant (EEG), to support businesses in improving energy efficiency by co-funding investments in energy efficient equipment.
We expanded the EEG in 2024 to cover more sectors, such as Construction, Manufacturing, Maritime and Data Centers.
Since introducing the EEG in September 2022, the Government has approved nearly 11,000 applications from over 4,000 businesses. This has resulted in positive cost savings and sustainability outcomes.
For example, United E&P Pte Ltd, a manufacturing company, replaced their asphalt crusher with an energy-efficient model. This change saves about $48,000 of energy costs annually and reduces lifetime carbon emissions by 1,000 tonnes.
To enhance energy efficiency of our industrial sector which is Singapore’s largest energy-consuming sector, we amended the Energy Conservation Act last year to extend Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) for chilled water systems to existing industrial facilities.
From April 2026, we will raise the MEES for water-cooled chilled water systems dedicated for space cooling in new industrial facilities to BCA's standards for space cooling in new commercial buildings under the Code for Environmental Sustainability (ES) of Buildings Edition 4.0.
This is to align energy efficiency standards across sectors, ease regulatory compliance for businesses and improve industrial energy efficiency.
With the revised energy efficiency standards, each new industrial facility can expect annual energy savings of $63,000 and above, over the 15-years lifespan of chilled water systems.
The short payback period of 1.5 years also makes installing energy efficient chilled water systems more cost-effective.
Mr Gan asked how we can support households amidst rising utilities costs. The Climate Friendly Households Programme (CFHP) will help support households to improve resource efficiency.
Last year, the CFHP was enhanced to provide all HDB households in Singapore with $300 worth of Climate Vouchers for purchases from among 10 types of resource-efficient household products.
As of 31 January 2025, around 80% of eligible HDB households (that is, around 850,000 households) have claimed their Climate Vouchers. Approximately $88 million dollars of climate vouchers have been utilised.
The top 3 household appliances purchased were direct current fans, refrigerators and washing machines. This translates to annual energy savings that can power 19,000 4-rooms HDB flats and annual water savings equivalent to 900 Olympics-sized swimming pools, or about $31 million in annual utility savings.
To encourage greater involvement in climate action, the Minister of Finance announced in his Budget Statement that the Government will provide an additional $100 of Climate Vouchers to eligible households, on top of the existing $300.
We will also expand the enhanced CFHP to include Singapore Citizen households living in private residential properties.
This means each eligible household will in total receive $400 of Climate Vouchers. The expansion will benefit around 250,000 more households, on top of the 1.1 million HDB households that are already covered under the enhanced CFHP. These enhancements will be available from 15 April 2025.
To support our heartland entrepreneurs, MSE has onboarded about 170 retailers, of which 130 are heartland retailers. Climate Vouchers can be used at over 520 outlets to provide greater accessibility to households.

Closing our Resource Loops

Our net zero targets necessitate the promotion of sustainable consumption and production practices. This requires us to reduce resource consumption, reuse where possible, before recycling.
Dr Lim and Mr Eric Chua asked how we can promote the 3Rs as a way of life. Ms See Jinli Jean asked for an update on our measures to manage key waste streams, including packaging waste.
We have made significant strides in facilitating waste reduction. Our domestic waste generated per capita, and non-domestic waste generated per dollar Gross Domestic Product decreased by more than 15 percent and 30 percent respectively over the past decade.
This indicates that households and businesses have taken positive steps to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Our overall recycling rate remained largely steady at around 60 percent between 2013 to 2019. There was a sharp decline during the COVID-19 period, and was at 52 percent in 2023.
The recent decline in recycling rate is largely driven by structural factors such as transport costs, market volatility for recyclables like paper, and foreign government restrictions on the trade in recyclables.
These are challenges we must contend with as we work towards closing our resource loop. We will study how we can work together with and support the recycling industry to increase the recycling rate of our key waste streams.
One key measure to reduce waste generation and improve recycling is the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) , which helps to aggregate clean streams of recyclables. An upcoming EPR scheme is the beverage container return scheme.
NEA has issued the producer responsibility scheme operator licence to BCRS Ltd., a not-for-profit company formed by a consortium of beverage producers comprising Coca-Cola Singapore Beverages Pte. Ltd., F&N Foods Pte. Ltd. and Pokka Pte. Ltd. The scheme will commence in April 2026.
Steady progress is being made to this end. BCRS Ltd. has called for proposals for the scheme’s IT system, counting and sorting centre, and the return point network.
They have also appointed two small producer representatives to their Board of Directors to represent smaller producers. BCRS Ltd. will set up more than 1,000 conveniently placed return points to facilitate our recycling journey.
Alongside EPR schemes, companies are also required to submit plans to reduce packaging use, promote reusables, and facilitate collection of packaging for reuse or recycling as part of their Mandatory Packaging Reporting (MPR) submissions.
MPR seeks to raise companies’ awareness of the packaging waste that they generate and spur them to take concrete steps to reduce it.
Companies have taken heed of this call to action. In 2024, NEA supported the launch of an Alliance for Action (AfA) on Packaging Waste Reduction for the E-commerce Sector.
Led by Singapore Manufacturing Federation and Singapore Post, the AfA comprised 14 members across the e-commerce supply chain.
The AfA estimates that in Singapore, about 186,000 parcels were delivered per day in 2023, generating as much as 15,900 tonnes of mailing packaging in that year alone.
Given the continued growth of this sector, I am pleased to announce that the AfA has developed the Guidelines on Sustainable E-commerce Packaging to guide companies on sustainable packaging practices.
The Guidelines provide a comprehensive list of 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) solutions for common packaging types such as cardboard boxes, mailers and fillers.
These solutions are rated based on effort required, cost, and environmental impact. Companies can adopt solutions that best suit their needs to achieve cost savings and minimize environmental impact.
For example, Watsons Singapore reduced its use of bubble wrap by repurposing shredded used cardboard boxes as filler material, saving up to 10 percent in overall packaging procurement costs.
Another example is Sealed Air, who found that with more direct deliveries, the amount of material used in its plastic and paper mailers could be reduced by 30 to 50 percent.
We hope that more e-commerce businesses will make good use of these guidelines, which can be downloaded from the Packaging Partnership Programme website.
On Mr Gerald Giam’s suggestion to provide free or low-cost drinking water to reduce plastic waste, tap water in Singapore is safe for drinking.
Water dispensers are also readily available at hawker centres, and in common areas such as parks, bus interchanges and terminals, where one can simply fill up our reusables.

Water Security

As we press on towards a sustainable and circular economy, we must also continue to strengthen our water resilience.
Most members would be familiar with our water supply infrastructure, like our desalination plants, reservoirs and waterways. Fewer might be familiar with the essential role that our used water infrastructure plays in supporting our water supply needs.
Our water demand is 440 million gallons a day today, and is expected to almost double by 2065. With rising water demand, more used water will be generated. So in tandem, we have to expand our used water conveyance and treatment capacity.
To address the need for more used water conveyance capacity, PUB has been expanding the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS).
The DTSS is an underground superhighway that will convey used water by gravity to three centralised water reclamation plants located at Changi, Tuas and Kranji. The first phase of the DTSS (DTSS 1) was completed in 2008 and serves the Northern and Eastern regions of Singapore.
The second phase of the DTSS (DTSS 2), which is under construction, will serve the Western region of Singapore, and will be operational by 2027.
When completed, the DTSS will free up 150ha of land for other purposes by phasing out intermediate pumping stations and conventional water reclamation plants.
In tandem, we have integrated our used water treatment and NEWater production and are expanding their capacities.
Tuas Water Reclamation Plant and Tuas NEWater factories are on track to be completed in phases from 2027.
The new Kranji Water Reclamation Plant and Kranji NEWater factory are targeted to be completed by mid-2030s.
The Changi Water Reclamation Plant will also be expanded by mid-2030s, and the construction of the third Changi NEWater factory is targeted to be completed in the next three years.
The three-node used water management system at Changi, Tuas and Kranji will play a critical role in helping to meet Singapore’s long-term needs.
Every drop of used water will be collected, treated and purified in an endless cycle, so that we make the best use of our limited resource. Indeed, let this be our calling – zero waste.

Conclusion

Madam Chair, our sustainability requires collective effort. Advancing green initiatives, improving energy efficiency and promoting resource resilience will put us on track to achieve our climate ambitions.

Thank you!