Designing a Rewarding Experience to Learn about Closed Loop Sustainability in Singapore

With an invite from Innovation Is Everywhere, last week, we designed and led a tour for 35 French businesses to discuss what sustainability x business means in Singapore. Heading to Gardens By The Bay gave us the opportunity to visit Marina Barrage to see the latest art installation by Ben Wong and Laura François, “Plastikophobia”. (I had previously volunteered for this art installation and was happy to show it to our visitors!).

“Plastikophobia” is a cave-like structure made of 18,000 used plastic cups, collected from 26 Hawker centers. It gives the audience a sneak peek of what soon might happen to many islands in the region; they will be surrounded by an ocean of plastic. The art piece created with the help of 30 volunteers - students, families, locals, foreigners - as well as NEA - that helped collect the plastic cups and provided the space- aims to showcase the negative repercussions of human activity with single-use plastic, and its inadequate recycling rate.

What can the design process of this art piece tell us? 

It tells us that Singapore’s government is supportive of raising awareness for sustainable initiatives (for instance NEA in the case of this art piece). Yet, this art installation showcases the almost non-existent recycling process. The 18,000 plastic cups used in the art piece will be incinerated afterwards.

And this is the dilemma that Singapore is facing today.

While it may be easy to ask countries to ban single-use plastic (France banned the single use plastic bag as of July 2016), it’s not easy for countries like Singapore, where much of the economy depends on industries that unfortunately are contributing to global warming.

On one side, Singapore is threatened by global warming. Over the past 20 years sea levels have risen from 6cm to 8cm. This is worrying for low-lying islands like Singapore, where much of the land is below 15m above sea level, and 30% of land is below 5m.

On the other hand, with increasing competition, Singapore needs to stay relevant to stay on top. This includes staying invested in arenas like oil and gas, an industry largely recognised as one of the main factors responsible for climate change.

ExxonMobil for example, has been on Singapore shores for more than a hundred and twenty years, with the organisation running a multi-billion-dollar manufacturing and marketing business here. They directly employ 3,500 people, and that number is likely 4 times higher for those indirectly connected to their business. 

ExxonMobil is one of the largest foreign investors in Singapore with fixed-asset investments totalling over US$7 billion. Singapore is also the location of the 592,000-barrel-per-day Singapore Refinery, which is ExxonMobil's largest in the world. This operation is fully integrated with the Singapore Chemical Plant (SCP).

So how can Singapore seems to find a balance between the economy and the environment? 

 With the Government’s 2016 Climate Action Plan, the country has already started on its four strategic initiatives:

1. Improving energy efficiency;

2. Reducing carbon emissions from power generation;

3. Developing and deploying cutting-edge low carbon technologies;

4. Encouraging collective action among government agencies, individuals, businesses and the community.

The plan is completed by targeted measure towards sea level increase such as protecting coastlines (70% of Singapore’s coastline is protected by hard seawalls and stone embankments protecting rising sea levels) to fight climate change.

In addition, Singapore also sits in pretty much all the international committees that are making efforts to protect Antarctica.

I would like to highlight the 4th pillar, which is particularly interesting, as it aims to raise awareness and involve people in their everyday lives. Breaking the day-to-day habits is not an easy feat - visit any local Foodcourt or kopitiam and you’ll see the immense use of plastic and styrofoam. According to NEA, only 6 % of plastic was recycled in 2017 in Singapore.

As many of us get caught up in our everyday lives, these facts and figures are easy to miss. This is why art installations like “Plastikophobia” are so important - they represent the complex problem that the island is facing. They also reflect collective effort and safe, trusting spaces where stakeholders can discuss these issues, and strive for solutions to create a sustainable future.