Products Certified under Singapore Green Labelling Scheme and Efforts to Promote Wider Adoption

9 Ms Ng Ling Ling asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) what have been the changes in the number of products certified under the Singapore Green Labelling Scheme in the past three years; and (b)what will the Ministry do to promote more companies to have more green-labelled products.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (Mr Baey Yam Keng) (for the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): The Singapore Green Labelling Scheme (SGLS) is administered by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC). We understand that, to date, SEC has certified over 4,300 products from more than 800 companies.

SEC's SGLS is one of the several green labelling schemes in Singapore. Others include the National Environment Agency's (NEA's) Mandatory Energy Labelling Scheme (MELS), the Public Utilities Board's (PUB's) Mandatory Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme (WELS), the Singapore Food Agency's (SFA's) Farm-To-Table (FTT) Recognition Programme and the Singapore Green Building Council's (SGBC's) Singapore Green Building Product (SGBP) certification scheme.

As a major buyer of goods and services, the public sector plays a role in encouraging companies to provide greener products and services. Under the GreenGov.SG initiative, the public sector has introduced green procurement requirements for nine categories of goods and services, some of which involve the use of green labels. For example, electrical appliances should meet the specified tick-rating under NEA's MELS, relevant building products are to be accredited with SEC's SGLS or SGBC's SGBP certification scheme, and white printing paper is to be accredited with SEC's Enhanced SGLS. Food and beverage establishments that are accredited by SFA's FTT Recognition Programme can also earn evaluation points when bidding for public sector catering contracts.

The public sector regularly reviews and updates its green procurement policies. These include incorporating reputable green standards, certification schemes or labels where applicable. We will also work with the industry and relevant non-Government organisations to gradually expand the goods and services covered under the public sector's green procurement policies. We hope that this will spur companies to produce, develop or supply more green products and services.

Mr Speaker: Ms Ng Ling Ling.

Ms Ng Ling Ling (Ang Mo Kio): Speaker, I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the very comprehensive reply. My one supplementary question is that as Singapore strengthens our move towards more proactive and deliberate efforts to mitigate climate change and further our sustainability efforts, does the Ministry also have plans to further incentivise our local private sector companies to buy from all these sustainability labelled or certified products because some have given feedback that they are a bit more premium priced and add to their operating costs in an already increasing cost environment?

Mr Baey Yam Keng: I thank Ms Ng Ling Ling for the question. I believe under Enterprise SG, there could be some schemes or grants to help local companies procure more productive or environmentally friendly equipment or products. I do not have the details now but I believe NEA would also have such grants and schemes. We will continue to look at what other ways we can nudge the private sector to be greener in their procurement.

Essentially, it is good for environment, but it must also be something that is available in the market readily and at a price point that makes sense for such commercial decisions. We will continue to look at that.