I am delighted to join you tonight for this celebration – the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) Gala Dinner. 

 

Sustainable development has always been a national priority for Singapore, as all of you know. We were green even before it was fashionable to be green. From the start of building our nation, we deliberately set out to make Singapore a garden city.

 

It was a painstaking effort when we went about planting trees day by day, year by year. We had a tree planting day every year, and our founding leader Mr Lee Kuan Yew showed the way by attending that event each and every year until his last day. That is the kind of dedication we put into making Singapore a Garden City. And today, if you look at the satellite photo of Singapore, you will find that more than 40% of our island is covered by greenery, which is a very significant amount. We are one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world in terms of green cover, and we intend to maintain that.  

 

But with the long-term challenges of climate change and global warming, planting trees on our streets will not be enough. Surface temperature in Singapore has been rising at a rate of 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade. This may not sound like a lot, but it all adds up. All of us can already feel the effect. More importantly, the rate of increase in surface temperature in Singapore is, in fact, faster than the global average. One contributor for this is the heat emitted from our buildings.

 

So besides green spaces and tree planting, we also need green buildings. That is why we started this journey more than a decade ago with our green mark standards. Today, about one-third of our buildings already meet the green mark standards. Our target is to have 80% of buildings to be green by 2030.

 

We could not have come this far nor would we be able to achieve the targets we have set for ourselves without the support of partners like the SGBC. As you heard just now, this year marks the 8th anniversary of SGBC.

 

The Council itself is a testament to the strength of public-private partnerships in Singapore because it is an enabler of green building solutions and it plays an instrumental role in promoting green building capabilities, and supporting the Green Mark scheme. Over the last 8 years, SGBC has been growing from strength to strength. Membership has been increasing and there is a lot of interest in joining the council.

 

Another indicator that Singapore has made its mark is that one of the former presidents of SGBC, Mr Tai Lee Siang, has been elected as president of the World Green Building Council. This says something about how far we have come in this journey and the reputation Singapore has in this space. Hopefully, this reputation for green buildings will also be something that benefits all our firms as you internationalise and seek to bring green solutions to the region.

 

We want to appreciate the partnership of companies, businesses, business leaders and many of the stakeholders who are here tonight. We thank all of you for your commitment and effort in this green building journey.

 

Tonight, we want to recognise the recipients of the SGBC-BCA Sustainability Leadership Awards. In particular, we want to congratulate the 4 winning companies and 3 winning projects. All of them have consistently integrated sustainable practices into their business models, company policies, and processes.

 

We are also presenting Green Building Awards to 9 individuals. They are recognised not just for their deep technical expertise, but also for their efforts in championing the green cause. These are all deserving recipients and we want to thank all of them for their dedication and contribution towards the green building movement.

 

Advancing green building practices is really a long-term commitment and priority.  It is exactly like how we started planting trees and making our streets green more than 50 years ago. Now, we have to take this next step to make not just our streets green, but our buildings green too. It is a long-term endeavour.

 

We have targets for 2030, but this will take us beyond 2030.  Some of you may ask if you will even be around to enjoy the benefits. But that is exactly the attitude that our pioneers had. They planted trees decades ago, so that we enjoy the shade today. We must have that same attitude and mindset to green buildings now so that our children can enjoy the benefits decades later. If we have that attitude and we continue to work together, I believe we can continue to work towards a greener, better and more sustainable Singapore. Thank you very much and have a good evening ahead.