Opening Remarks by Minister Lawrence Wong at the Symposium - A Cleaner, Greener and Smarter Home

Jan 7, 2016

Good evening everyone, it’s very good to see everyone here today at this Symposium - A Cleaner, Greener and Smarter Home.

Both Masagos and myself are new to our respective ministries. We joined just a couple of months ago and speaking for myself, coming into MND, the one thing that struck me most was the amount of painstaking detail that goes into thinking about how we can make every square inch of our island special. Because we are so small and we have so little land, a lot of long-term planning, thought and effort goes into thinking how we can make Singapore special.

That is the basis of how we got to where we are today. We started this 50 years ago and it is a combination of factors - long-term view, planning and more importantly, not just top-down but animated and energised spirit of our pioneers - that worked together to make today’s Singapore possible. You saw the transformation of Singapore earlier in Koon Hean’s1presentation. 

We are now at a new phase – SG50 plus 1. We have just completed SG50 and are starting a new chapter of the Singapore story. It will be an exciting new chapter, if we can continue that pioneering spirit of our earlier generations. And if we think about what are the exciting new possibilities for Singapore in the next 50 years. The possibilities are limitless. Ultimately, we have to decide what kind of Singapore we want for the future; what kind of Singapore we want for the next 50 years.

We have a showcase of some of the possibilities in the Future of Us Exhibition. It is happening nearby and if you have gone to see it, you would have seen some of the possibilities sketched out. They are not defining or prescriptive, but just showing the potential of what can be developed. We have had quite good response from the people, young and old, who have been to the exhibition. They have also given us feedback – one of the things we do when they complete the exhibition is ask them for their ideas for the Singapore of the future. 

So let me read some of the things that came from some of the participants, pertaining to our theme – a Cleaner, Greener and Smarter Home. It is quite interesting. A young chap, Yixing, who is nine years old, said “let’s not hire any more cleaners.” Liak2 will be very to hear this because Liak always says that Singapore is not a clean country but a cleaned country. He was very happy to hear a nine-year-old boy say that. I presume what he meant was that we all have to clean up after ourselves. Young adult Deepa said “let’s plant more and more trees!” NParks will be very happy to hear that. We don’t have much land left to plant trees but we are going upwards. 

Lina says let’s have better recycling and cooler weather. I can’t guarantee, I don’t know about the cooler weather, but we should certainly strive for better recycling. Gavin who is 67 years old says we should have fewer vehicles being used with more public transport. So if we want to have a car-lite society, then certainly, somebody like him is already thinking about the Singapore of the future where there will be fewer vehicles on the road with better public transport.

These are some of the things that Singaporeans themselves who have gone through the exhibition have provided feedback on what are some of their aspirations for the future. And I think that in this sector where we are talking about a cleaner, greener, better home, we all share very common aspirations as you see from the feedback. We would like to have reduced wastage, we would like to have a clean society, not a cleaned society, we want to be cleaner, we want to be greener, and we want to have smarter homes – so the aspirations are very common.

I think there is a lot the Government can to do, certainly, to take our plans forward over the next 50 years. But there a lot that all of us as Singaporeans can do also to realise these shared goals. There is already a lot that people are being involved in, as you saw just now in the slides. We have community gardeners, some of them are here with us, we have NParks volunteers who are very active in our parks, many of you are involved in the eco-business. I just met Jessica3 just now, a former journalist who now runs an eco-business which is called Eco-Business, incidentally. Many of you are involved in your respective sectors, whether in building, in design, in architecture, also in thinking about sustainability solutions. So there are many people who are already actively involved in this space and we really hope that you can continue your participation, share with us your ideas. 

There are also some of you who are cycling enthusiasts – Francis4 is here, he even cycled here with a foldable bicycle. There is a growing number of cycling enthusiasts, so we are thinking about our park connectors, our cycling masterplan and increasingly there will be more people using this and other personal mobility devices to bridge last mile solutions in our society, especially if you want to talk about a car-lite Singapore. 

All of you have passions, you have ideas, you have aspirations for what kind of Singapore we want to be going forward. I would encourage all of us to spend some time thinking about this because you know that the next 50 years will not be smooth-sailing. There will be more challenges facing us – some of these challenges may be bigger than the ones that our forefathers and our pioneers faced in the last 50 years. The challenge of climate change will be very real, sea-level rising will be very real, the challenge of the fact that our constraints are becoming more and more significant – in terms of land, in terms of labour, in terms of resources. They are biting in a more significant way than ever before. I think that is also a very real challenge in the next 50 years.

It is going to be more difficult, but there are also many exciting opportunities with new technologies. There are many exciting opportunities for us to work together because that sense of Singaporean identity and that spirit of unity is much stronger today than it was before. We have every opportunity and every potential to make the future Singapore even better than what it is today.

I would just want to encourage all of us, to not just spend time thinking about ideas, but think about concrete action that you can be involved in. Today’s Symposium is really meant to kick-start a series of conversations, but it should not just be talk only. We really want you to get involved, if you have good ideas, share, better yet, do something about it and let us know, and we in MND or MEWR can support you, we will do our best to support you and work with you to translate your ideas into actions. Then we can start today to build the foundations of a better Singapore tomorrow. I will just stop here and the others can share and we can have a dialogue after that.

1 Dr Cheong Koon Hean – CEO of Housing Development Board 
2 Liak Teng Lit – Group CEO of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital Singapore 
3 Jessica Cheam – Editor of Eco-Business.com
4 Francis Chu – Co-founder of Love Cycling SG