Review of Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act to Prohibit Greenwashing by Businesses

8 Assoc Prof Razwana Begum Abdul Rahim asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether the Ministry is considering a review of the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act to explicitly prohibit greenwashing by businesses operating in Singapore; and (b) whether the Ministry will consider funding community education programmes to raise awareness among consumers about greenwashing.

The Minister of State for Trade and Industry (Mr Alvin Tan) (for the Minister for Trade and Industry): The Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, or CPFTA, already protects consumers against businesses that make false or misleading claims about their products or services, including around greenwashing.

In November 2023, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) and the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) jointly developed a set of tips to help consumers better understand environmental claims made by suppliers or businesses. These can be found on both the CCCS website as well as the CASE website. The CCCS is also developing a set of guidelines to help businesses make more accurate environmental claims about their products and services.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Razwana Begum.

Assoc Prof Razwana Begum Abdul Rahim (Nominated Member): I thank the Minister of State for the response. I just have two supplementary questions.

My question really is on, how do we align this with our Singapore Green Plan? In terms of legislation, we are looking at businesses being a bit more ethical in their practices and being aligned with our Green Plan as well, but at the same time, they are also trying to make a living. So, that is one question – how are we going to get the legislation to move into being aligned the Green Plan?

The next question is, when we are advising our consumers, are they aware of the implication of this? Because a lot of the terms that are being used is very vague. So, I think in trying to get our population to be aligned with some of the initiatives that we are trying to do in terms of sustainability, it is important that we consider how we educate our consumers.

Mr Alvin Tan: I thank Assoc Prof Razwana for her supplementary questions. In fact, indeed, these are all part of an overarching move for us within the Singapore Green Plan, to make both consumers as well as businesses understand. And as both consumers demand more of green supply chains and value chains, upstream as well as downstream, so too businesses have that understanding of consumer preferences as well. So, it is very much aligned.

If I can also supplement the answer to the Member's question, about both what we are trying to do upstream, in terms of consumer education, which the Assoc Prof had mentioned earlier on, as well as downstream. If you are a consumer, or if you are a business, how can you take concrete action? On the upstream, we have these consumer education tips that I mentioned, both by CCCS as well as CASE. Those are on the websites. I have just checked it out this morning. I think we can do a lot better. So, if Assoc Prof Razwana, other Members of this House and other members in the community can give us even more tips to enhance that, we would welcome those suggestions. These are more upstream.

The second upstream measure is also to develop these guidelines to better guide on the supplier side, to better guide suppliers on environmental claims that could amount to unfair practices, which are covered under the Act, the CCCS will seek public feedback on this in due course. So, we welcome the Member and also other Members to provide their feedback and suggestions on this. But, in general, we do advise suppliers to be very specific and accurate in their environmental claims and to ensure that all of these claims can be substantiated with credible evidence. So, that is on the upstream.

On the downstream, it is also important. So, if you were a consumer and you encounter what you think would be greenwashing claims made by businesses on your purchases, please do approach CASE for assistance. If there are egregious cases, where the business persistently engages in these unfair practices, CASE then can refer these to CCCS for further investigation.

On the other hand also, you might encounter some advertising which would be concerning. So, consumers may also report suppliers' advertisements which contain these potentially misleading or false environmental claims to the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS). ASAS administers the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice (SCAP), and if the advertisement is objectionable under SCAP, ASAS may ask the advertiser to either men or to withdraw the advertisement altogether.

Finally, since my last oral Parliamentary Question reply in 21 March 2023 to the then Member Leon Perera, there have been four total complaints relating to greenwashing that have been presented to CCCS and CASE.