Proposal to Measure Developments based on Biodiversity Improvement Score

5 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for National Development whether the Government has considered complementing LUSH 3.0's focus on greenery provision with a biodiversity metric that measures net ecological gain or loss, similar to the UK’s Biodiversity Net Gain framework, so that developments are assessed not only by how green they appear but by whether they result in a measurable improvement in biodiversity.

The Minister of State for National Development (Mr Alvin Tan) (for the Minister of National Development): Sir, the Landscaping for Urban Spaces and High-Rises (LUSH) programme integrates green spaces into our urban environment through a mix of planning requirements and incentives.

Under LUSH, developers must provide replacement greenery within new developments, which can be up to 40% of the development site area in some cases. Since its inception in 2009, LUSH has supported the implementation of over 440 hectares of greenery, which is more than the size of 600 football fields. This supports biodiversity, enhances liveability and mitigates urban heat.

Despite our land constraints, we are committed to enhancing biodiversity even as we undertake developments to meet different land use needs for our people, such as housing, education, healthcare, transport and jobs. For example, we are safeguarding more green spaces, establishing additional nature parks, restoring core habitats and conducting species recovery for rare, threatened and endemic species. These efforts work in tandem with LUSH to improve biodiversity in Singapore.

We are mindful not to adopt practices in other countries without first understanding their suitability for our local context. We assess that our balanced and coordinated approach to enhancing biodiversity can achieve better outcomes for Singapore, compared to the United Kingdom's (UK's) Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) framework approach of imposing biodiversity targets on individual development projects.

Mr Speaker: Mr Tan.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have three supplementary questions. First, I thank the Minister of State for his reply. My first supplementary question, will the Ministry of National Development (MND) consider complementing the green plot ratio with an indicator that reflects ecological value, such as the use of native species or support for urban wildlife, by mandating a native biodiversity score, so that our green spaces contribute to quality greenery and biodiversity to beyond visual amenity, and in the case of LUSH, to discourage ornamental plants with lower ecological value?

My second supplementary question, the UK's framework requires a mandatory 10% biodiversity net gain for new developments. Has MND considered adopting a similar quantitative baseline in the interest of transparency and accountability? I believe that with a measurable net-gain target, it can better assist MND to ensure that our City in Nature vision is maintaining or improving functional habitats over time.

My third supplementary question, the Ecological Profiling Exercise (EPE) identifies critical stepping stones for wildlife, but many LUSH-compliant developments remain isolated in green islands rather than contagious green linkages. Has MND considered more explicitly aligning existing programmes, like LUSH, more directly to EPE-identified priority corridors, so that developments in these locations contribute to strengthening ecological connectivity beyond isolated green plots?

Mr Alvin Tan: Sir, I thank Mr Dennis Tan for his commitment to working together with MND and the National Parks Board (NParks) in pursuing our City in Nature vision. And we have discussed this multiple times, so thank you for working together with us first.

Let me touch on the UK's BNG framework and also look into how it has its own fair share of limitations. In fact, I did some study last night and the UK developers have cited the BNG as costly and also imposing delays to building homes for UK citizens. The UK government in itself has also proposed rollbacks to the BNG, because it is impacting their ability to build homes.

Even the UK, with their larger land sizes, has difficulty building their homes and are reviewing this, so I think we need to exercise caution when thinking about applying that to our context.

And in that regard, I also wanted to take a larger holistic view on how we are safeguarding biodiversity. The LUSH project, now in its third iteration, is just a one part of our overall strategy to enhance and to preserve biodiversity in Singapore.

I mentioned earlier on my Parliamentary Question reply that we have also safeguarded 7,800 hectares of green spaces and will establish additional nature parks, restore core habitats, conduct species recovery for rare, threatened and endemic species. This is a holistic approach towards enhancing biodiversity, in addition to what we are doing with LUSH, which is a downstream measure, and it is in aim to build and incorporate livability into our urban spaces.

In that regard, I thought it is also being very, very helpful for us to give a concrete example about this. In Chencharu, Yishun for example, we are balancing development together with biodiversity. And this illustrates the point that I am trying to make. In that project, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) has worked with biodiversity experts and the nature groups on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Yishun Chencharu Build-to-Order flats to enhance nature planting, and also to build in advance and then implement an environmental monitoring management plan to design green spaces and linear parks.

And in that regard also, we have worked very closely with our nature groups and environmental efforts. So, I also wanted to take this opportunity to also respond to Member He Ting Ru's point on Wednesday about our engagements with nature groups being one-sided. That is not true, because we work with our nature groups very extensively. I met with them even on Valentine's Day last month. And I worked with Dr Shawn Lum, for example, on the Nature Society Singapore. In this particular Yishun Chencharu project, Dr Shawn Lum has offered his expertise to co-create planting palette with HDB.

I appreciate the Member's suggestion in looking at external examples, but I think that is not quite appropriate to Singapore's context. We have a larger, more holistic, more coordinated approach to enhancing biodiversity. I thank him for his continued work with us in pursuing this very important mission.

Mr Speaker: Let us squeeze in one more last Parliamentary Question. Ms Elysa Chen.