Singapore Green Plan 2030: the national targets

What the Green Plan is, and is not

The Green Plan is a statement of government targets, not legislation. No company can breach it. Its importance is that it is upstream of things that do bind you: the carbon tax trajectory, building energy rules, waste regulations and the green finance push all trace back to commitments made here.

Reading the Green Plan is how you anticipate regulation two or three years before it arrives.

It is jointly led by the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, the Ministry of National Development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Education, and was launched in February 2021.

City in Nature

• By 2026: develop over 130 hectares of new parks and enhance about 170 hectares of existing parks
• By 2030: plant 1 million more trees; increase the land area of nature parks by 50 per cent
• By 2035: add 1,000 hectares of green spaces

Sustainable Living

• By 2026: reduce waste to landfill per capita per day by 20 per cent
• By 2030: reduce waste to landfill per capita per day by 30 per cent
• By 2030: reduce household water consumption to 130 litres per person per day
• By 2030: 75 per cent mass public transport modal share in peak periods; half the bus fleet electric; rail network expanded to about 360 km; cycling path network extended to about 1,300 km
• Schools by 2030: two-thirds reduction in net carbon emissions from the schools sector; at least 20 per cent of schools carbon neutral
• By 2040: exceed 80 per cent mass public transport modal share

A precision point that is frequently got wrong. The waste target is a reduction in waste to landfill per capita per day - an intensity measure - not an absolute reduction in total tonnage. With a growing population the two can move in different directions. If you are benchmarking Singapore against another country's absolute waste target, you are not comparing like with like.

Energy Reset

• By 2025: deploy 1.5 gigawatt-peak (GWp) of solar; 200 megawatt-hours of energy storage
• By 2030: at least 2 GWp of solar, around 3 per cent of projected 2030 electricity demand
• By 2030: green 80 per cent of buildings by gross floor area
• By 2030: 80 per cent of new developments by gross floor area to be Super Low Energy
• By 2030: 80 per cent improvement in energy efficiency for best-in-class green buildings over 2005 levels
• By 2030 (transport): 60,000 electric vehicle charging points; all newly registered cars and taxis to be cleaner-energy models
• By 2040: all vehicles running on cleaner energy; all airport airside vehicles on clean energy

The solar figure deserves context. Singapore is small, flat, cloudy and densely built; 2 GWp is an ambitious deployment for the land available, and it still covers only around 3 per cent of projected 2030 demand. That single fact explains a great deal about Singapore's policy: it is why electricity imports, hydrogen, carbon capture and international carbon credits feature so heavily, and why energy efficiency is pushed so hard. There is no domestic renewable resource to grow into.

The three "80 per cent" building targets are the 80-80-80 in 2030 goals of the Singapore Green Building Masterplan, which the BCA Green Mark scheme is designed to deliver.

Green Economy

• By 2030: establish Singapore as a leading centre for green finance and for carbon services and trading in Asia

This is the pillar behind the Singapore-Asia Taxonomy, the sustainable bond and loan grant schemes, Climate Impact X and the Article 6 carbon credit programme.

Resilient Future

• By 2030: the local agri-food industry to produce 30 per cent of Singapore's nutritional needs - the "30 by 30" target

How to use this

For a business, the Green Plan is a forecasting document. Three worked examples:

• "Green 80 per cent of buildings by gross floor area by 2030" is why the Mandatory Energy Improvement regime exists and why it will likely widen.
• "Reduce waste to landfill per capita per day by 30 per cent" is why the Resource Sustainability Act obligations keep expanding into new streams.
• "A leading centre for green finance and carbon services" is why grant support for sustainable bonds and loans exists, and why it has an end date of 2028 - the subsidy is there to build a market, not to run one forever.