Speech by Minister Desmond Lee 58th Institution of Engineers Singapore Annual Dinner

Oct 15, 2024

I am delighted to join you at the 58th annual dinner of the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES).

The “Can Do” Spirit of Engineering

Our engineers have played major roles in our nation building – you have developed our key infrastructure such as housing and transport, you have designed iconic landmarks, and you have pioneered technological innovations that have put tiny Singapore on the world map.

Given our size and lack of natural resources, we depend on the creativity of our engineers to harness design and technology to overcome constraints and seize opportunities.

As we embark on the next phase of our development, we will continue to face significant challenges such as intense land use pressures, climate change, and aging infrastructure. And just like before, we will need to tap on the ‘can-do’ spirit of engineers to shape Singapore’s future together. I will just briefly cover each of these.

Overcoming Land Constraints

First, what is the role of engineers when it comes to the intense land use pressures that we face. As an island city-state, we have to meet the needs not just of a city, but also of a country, all within 735 square kilometres. In a big country with a city and a large hinterland, you can put a lot of things that the city needs, outside the city. But for a city-state, our karma is that everything has to be within the city itself. As our urban landscape becomes denser, this task will become more challenging.

As engineers, you play an important role in developing innovative solutions to optimise our limited space while enhancing liveability. Just take Marina Bay for example. It is a vibrant business district, but it also functions as a reservoir, a flood control mechanism, and a recreational area for Singaporeans, allowing us to make full use of the limited space that we have.

Such integrated land use is only possible thanks to our engineers, planners and builders, who made impressive engineering achievements possible, such as the Marina Barrage, the Marina Coastal Expressway – which by the way is Singapore’s first undersea tunnel, the Marina Bay District Cooling System – which is the world’s largest underground district cooling system, and more.

Looking ahead, we have ambitious plans that will create spaces for Singaporean to live, work and play. For example, the Long Island project will protect our coastline from rising sea levels, enhance our water security, while creating new land for future generations to use.

We look forward to working with our engineers and our builders to turn these ambitious plans into reality.

Securing a Greener & More Sustainable Future

I am now going to talk about the existential threat of climate change, and the role that engineers play in this regard. We are already experiencing rising temperatures, more unpredictable weather and rising sea levels. There is urgency to press on to reduce our carbon emissions and pursue more sustainable development.

We are committed to our goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. I am glad that our engineers are stepping up to support our decarbonisation efforts. For example, I am told that a multi-agency team of engineers from JTC, BCA, the Singapore Green Building Council and NUS have developed the Singapore Building Carbon Calculator. This tool adopts a life cycle approach to assess a building’s carbon footprint, helping us make informed decisions, such as the choice of low-carbon materials, as well as greener building operations and maintenance solutions. 

At IES too, I am told, that you have developed an IES Green Plan that outlines tangible ways that engineers can contribute to our sustainability agenda in different sectors and disciplines.

Looking ahead, we will need to push the current technological boundaries through research and innovation. One area we can do more in, is improving building energy efficiency. Today, our best-in-class green buildings have achieved 72% energy efficiency improvements compared to 2005 when we first started. This is just shy of our target of achieving 80% energy efficiency improvements by 2030.

This is why we are further accelerating R&D efforts, through initiatives, such as the recently launched Design Prototyping for Decarbonisation Challenge that encourages innovators to find better sustainability solutions. 

So I look forward to your continued contribution as engineers to our sustainability agenda.

Managing and Refreshing Our Aging Infrastructure

This leads me to the third challenge, which is to manage and refresh our growing stock of aging infrastructure, as our city matures.

There is tightening space and manpower constraints, so our engineers and Built Environment professionals will need to adopt more productive methods to inspect, maintain, and refresh and retrofit our older buildings and infrastructure. For instance, the use of drones to perform façade inspections for high-rise buildings allows faster and safer inspections, not to mention reducing costs.

Our older buildings are also typically less energy efficient. Retrofitting such buildings can be costly and challenging. This requires you as an engineer to work with the building owner to deploy innovative solutions, like energy management and storage systems, that can improve the energy performance of older buildings.

As we rejuvenate our city, it is also important to explore how to retrofit and adaptively reuse existing buildings, especially those that are architecturally and historically significant. This will require our engineers, architects and builders to find innovative ways to breathe new life into Singapore’s heritage buildings, while keeping it relevant to today’s context. 

Strengthening the Engineering Profession

To achieve all of these and more, we will need to urgently strengthen the engineering profession, and inspire Singaporeans to join us in physically building the future of Singapore through the engineering pathway.

We have heard your feedback that attracting and retaining talent is a key challenge for many of our engineering firms, and we have to address this urgently. It remains key to the growth and viability of the engineering profession. We share the same concerns as you.

We have taken steps to improve the recognition of engineers. For example, my colleagues at BCA have started to showcase inspiring work by our engineers through the recently launched ‘Building Singapore Industry’ branding campaign.

We have also been encouraging firms to adopt progressive HR practices, such as providing more competitive remuneration and actively supporting employees in their career development. I am told this has yielded some good results with more than 120 Built Environment firms completing a ‘HR health check’ to improve workplace practices. 29 Built Environment sector employers have also been recognised in the Straits Times - Singapore’s Best Employers listing released earlier this year.

But collectively, we need to do a lot more for the engineering profession. We have therefore set up a joint industry-Government Taskforce to dive more deeply into the talent attraction and retention challenges of this profession. The Taskforce, co-chaired by my colleague Minister Indranee Rajah and Mr Chaly Mah who is Chairman of Surbana Jurong, has already started work.

The key areas that this Taskforce will be looking at include fostering healthier business practices, supporting enterprise growth, accelerating the transformation of the workforce and ways of working, as well as improving remuneration for our engineers and workplace conditions. After all, only a dynamic Built Environment sector, with thriving firms and exciting projects in the pipeline, will be able to excite and engage the brightest engineering minds in Singapore to join them. And I would like to thank IES for supporting the work of this Taskforce.

I am glad that IES continues to raise awareness of and recognise the invaluable contributions our engineers have made to Singapore. Tonight, we will be honouring several engineers and their achievements. I would like to congratulate all our award recipients and nominees. Please share their achievements outside the profession, so that people know more about the hard work that many engineers often do quietly in the background, in order to inspire younger Singaporeans to join this profession. 

I would like to once again congratulate you, and I thank the IES for the invitation to dinner. Thank you very much and have a good evening ahead.