Keynote Speech by 2M Indranee Rajah at the ULI Asia Pacific Summit at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore
May 31, 2023
1. Good morning.
2. Thank you for inviting me to be part of this year’s ULI Asia Pacific Summit. It is really exciting to see the energy in this room, and I look forward to the opportunity to meet you.
3. It has been more than two years since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, and much has changed since then. Globally, the pandemic revealed vulnerabilities to supply chains. It shifted people’s behaviours and expectations – in terms of how we work, live and play, and challenged status quo in terms of what we prioritise.
4. Countries are also facing challenges such as climate change, ageing populations and the disruptions brought about by new forms of work, powered by digitalisation. Here in Singapore, it is no exception; we are experiencing all of these. These challenges impact how we imagine, plan and design our spaces in a way that is sustainable across generations.
5. Today, I just want to share a little about what Singapore is planning for the future, and how it can be sustainable.
Leader in Sustainability
6. Many of us here in Singapore would have experienced the sweltering heat in the past two months. As a matter of fact, the temperature in Ang Mo Kio – that is the central part of Singapore – climbed to 37 degree Celsius a few weeks ago. This was the highest daily maximum temperature ever observed in Singapore since 1983. Experts have said that such extreme temperatures are only going to be more common – and obviously not just in Singapore.
7. The climate crisis is global. It is a critical challenge of our time that will have a long-lasting impact on generations to come. We must take climate change seriously and protect our children. It is our duty and responsibility to future generations to get this right, and we are committed to playing our part.
8. That is why Singapore launched the Singapore Green Plan 2030 – to advance sustainable development across different sectors, from transportation and education to the built environment. The plan supports our national target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, as we work towards becoming a leader in sustainability.
9. Greening our buildings is key in this endeavour. Buildings contribute to over 20% of Singapore’s carbon emissions, even more than the entire transport sector in Singapore. To accelerate our transition to a low-carbon built environment, we launched the latest edition of the Singapore Green Building Masterplan (SGBMP) in 2021, which sets three ambitious targets.
10. First, to green 80% of our buildings by Gross Floor Area (GFA) by 2030. Today, we have greened close to 55% of our buildings, putting us on track to meeting our target by 2030.
11. Second, for 80% of new developments (by GFA) to be Super Low Energy (SLE) buildings from 2030. These are buildings that achieve energy savings of over 60% compared to 2005 levels, when we first started greening our buildings. In the past year, about 20% of our new buildings have achieved SLE standards, and we will continue to double up our efforts on this front.
12. Third, we want to achieve 80% improvement in energy efficiency (compared to 2005 levels) for best-in-class green buildings by 2030. Today, our best-in-class green buildings have achieved over 70% improvement in energy efficiency.
13. But the government cannot achieve these sustainability goals alone; collaboration between the public and private sector is critical to building an environmentally sustainable and socially resilient city.
14. We work with partners such as the Singapore Green Building Council and other stakeholders to co-create solutions for sustainability and promote sustainable practices among building users. For example, the “Sustainability in Singapore” programme trains individuals to engage their peers at the workplace on sustainability issues, and implement practical solutions to meet their organisations’ sustainability goals.
15. We also encourage partnerships through innovation. Under Research Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025, we support research collaborations with research institutes and companies to help translate R&D outcomes into real-life applications.
16. For example, to push the boundaries for green buildings in the tropics, our Green Building Innovation Cluster (GBIC) programme is supporting Green Koncepts, a local small and medium enterprise (SME), to develop an AI-enabled system to monitor and control different building systems. The system was piloted at DBS Newton Green, and allows the building owner to achieve 22% energy savings for lighting control, and 40% energy savings for air conditioning over other commercial solutions. Today, Green Koncepts continues to grow their local customer-base, and has expanded their services into Europe.
17. Another example is a project under the Built Environment Technology Alliance (BETA) programme by Woh Hup, Alliance Concrete Singapore and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). They have developed a new low-carbon concrete which can be used as sustainable construction material.
18. The two examples show how collaboration in research and innovation can produce far-reaching outcomes. We welcome more companies to tap on our programmes and to continue to grow our capabilities in the area of green buildings and accelerate the commercialisation of these solutions through industry partnerships.
19. Beyond green buildings, Singaporeans aspire to live, work, play and grow in places that are environmentally friendly and sustainable. The government is planning for Jurong Lake District - a new mixed-use business district and the largest outside the city centre, to be Singapore’s first district that will achieve net-zero emissions for new developments by around 2045, 5 years before the national target.
20. To kickstart the next phase of development of this sustainable district, which will be a key piece of our decentralisation strategy in the next 10 to 15 years, we will be releasing a 6.5 hectare mixed-use site for sale to a Master Developer next month.
21. Spanning 2 MRT stations with inter-connections to 4 MRT lines, the site will allow the Master Developer to introduce new development concepts with the appropriate mix of uses that will contribute towards creating complete neighbourhoods where workplaces, green spaces and daily amenities are within 10 minutes by foot, cycling or public transport.
22. This large-scale development will have to minimally meet BCA’s Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy Rating certification standards and be integrated with district cooling and district waste conveyance systems. It will be energy and resource efficient. Land will also be set aside to maximise solar energy generation for the district.
Sustainable Public Housing Market
23. Next, let me talk about another top-of-mind issue, which is Housing. Cities are seeing record high prices of housing, contributed by many years of low interest rate, higher costs of construction, and higher demand coming from a shift towards working from home. We are not spared from these structural shifts in Singapore.
24. Home ownership is a key tenet of Singapore’s social compact. Through home ownership, our citizens have both a roof over their head and a tangible stake in the country. Around 9 in 10 Singaporeans are home owners today, and 80% live in Public Housing. This unique position is not by chance, but rather a deliberate policy design, governed by principles still relevant today. These include ensuring Homes are built with Ownership in mind, and for the masses.
25. These principles are supported by policy decisions such as having the Government as the main developer of public housing, a comprehensive and dynamic housing model offering new subsidised flats complementing the secondary resale market, and a robust Government-administered mandatory Social Security Savings Scheme known as the Central Provident Fund or CPF that can be used for housing purchases.
26. These policy decisions have enabled prices of new subsidised Build-to-Order or BTO flats, to remain largely stable over the last two years. BTO prices are set based on affordability outcomes and not on the development cost. Therefore, even though constructions costs have increased by over 30% in this period, such rising costs have not passed on to buyers but absorbed by Government. How do we do it? We price new flats based on recent transacted prices of comparable resale flats nearby, according to industry valuation principles, before applying a substantial market discount to ensure that flats are affordable for Singaporeans across the different household income percentiles.
27. In addition, we provide generous grants to make the flats more affordable to flat buyers, with greater support to those who need them most. Eligible first-timers can enjoy housing grants of up to S$80,000. Last year, about 9 in 10 new BTO flat buyers could service their HDB housing loans mainly with their CPF contributions or social security savings accounts, with little or no cash outlay.
28. Providing affordable public housing does not just involve the work of the architects, planners and engineers but a much larger eco-system of policy planners. Our savings scheme is designed in a holistic manner to support Singaporeans to meet the basic needs of housing, medical care and day-to-day spending in retirement.
29. To further support our first-timer families embark on their home ownership journeys, we also set aside the majority of our BTO flat supply for first-timers – at least 95% of the 4-room or larger flat supply. The BTO model, which constitutes a proportion of flat supply set aside for first-timers and pricing set by the Government, ensures that first-timer families can get additional support in getting their first homes, and not be priced out by second-timers who would already have a property and potentially greater wealth.
30. Complementing the BTO market, we also have a vibrant secondary resale market. This provides greater options for Singaporeans, especially for those who may have specific locational preferences such as living near their parents for mutual care and support, or a desire to secure homes sooner. First-timers are supported by up to $190,000 in grants.
31. As we build homes to give Singaporeans a roof over their heads, like other cosmopolitan cities, we also have to keep a close watch on invisible social and economic forces that can cause social stratification and division – manifested through where people live – if left to their own devices. That is why we must proactively act against these forces to ensure social cohesiveness is maintained for generations.
32. One way that we do this here in Singapore is through the provision of more support for lower-income families, who generally have fewer housing options. We recognise that having a stable living environment is important to improve inter-generational mobility. So we provide highly subsidised rental housing under the Public Rental scheme as a social safety net.
33. To ensure that our public housing remains inclusive, such public rental flats are built alongside – or, even within the very same building as – sold HDB flats. This includes flats built in prime areas of Singapore launched under the Prime Location Public Housing (PLH) model.
34. We also want to ensure that our public housing supports families and reflects our values of multi-culturalism and multi-racialism. That is why we implemented the Ethnic Integration Policy (or EIP) which essentially establishes quotas on the proportion of each ethnicity that can live in each block of flats or neighbourhood.
35. We do this because we recognise that, if left alone, there is a tendency for people to stratify based on ethnic lines. This could lead to ethnic enclaves emerging. We see this happening in some other cities around the world, and in a small city-state like Singapore, we cannot afford for this to happen.
36. Ultimately, we are not just building houses, but building diverse communities for Singaporeans to live, to bond and experience life together. In doing so, we build a nation as one people. Social cohesion and strong communities are at the heart of all that we do, whether it is designing our neighbourhoods and spaces to maximise interactions between neighbours; or having pavilions to allow residents to gather together for parties or even Zumba classes. These require deliberate and concerted planning. These intangible aspects of culture that people share plays a big part in forging a common identity.
37. As we build communities, we recognise the physical constraints, especially in a land scarce city-state like Singapore. There are many competing land use needs, and so, how we plan our land use has to be forward-looking, to meet the needs of current and future generations.
38. To this end, our public housing flats are designed with 99-year leases. This allows the Government to redevelop the land, and build new flats, after the 99 years. If instead the Government offered flats on freehold, sooner or later we would run out of land to build new flats for future generations. Practically, the 99-year lease also allows the Government to rejuvenate our estates by demolishing old flats, and rebuilding them afresh.
39. More broadly, we take a long term perspective in our land use planning to ensure that we steward our land responsibly, and that land use is intergenerationally sustainable. Not many countries are able to do this. Some cities are planning for five years or 10 years. But here in Singapore, we plan for the next 50 years, for our generation, and at least the next two generations to come.
Future of Singapore
40. After more than 50 years of housing a nation, where do we go from here?
41. We have carried out engagements and conversations with Singaporeans under Forward Singapore and the URA’s Long-Term Plan Review, which maps out the plan for our future city 50 years from now and beyond.
42. More than 15,000 people were engaged for the Long-Term Plan Review and we used these ideas to shape our long-term plan for a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable city for future generations. Some highlights include:
a) New housing options to cater to diverse and evolving aspirations;
b) Exploring more mixed-use buildings and spaces, to enable greater integration of entire business value chains, as well as complementary amenities within a development – such as co-working, retail and food and beverages spaces; and
c) More hybrid solutions that combine engineering with nature-based elements to achieve flood and coastal protection, to reap multi-functional benefits such as the creation of recreational and ecological value.
43. All in all, our work in city planning never ends. We will never stop re-imagining and re-developing Singapore – to realise the dreams and aspirations of our current and future generations.
44. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing and exchanging ideas from everyone.
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