30 Apr 2024
From Ambition into Action: Frasers Property celebrates Environment Month 2024 in Singapore
This year marks the eighth edition of Frasers Property Environment Month, a Group-wide community initiative running from Earth Hour to Earth Day aimed at raising greater awareness around the climate and the environment. Throughout this month, we rally our stakeholders to give back to our environment through participating in eco-friendly initiatives. This year, we encouraged our community in Singapore to take tangible steps every day, as part of our efforts to build an eco-conscious culture.
Partnering with like-minded partners such as our tenants, government agencies, solutions providers and the communities, we developed and implemented eco-initiatives focusing on renewable energy, water conservation, and food security. As a major real estate player with sustainability goals aligned with the Singapore Green Plan 2030, we continue to engage our ecosystem of stakeholders across the real estate value chain to push for a more sustainable future. Here is a look at our initiatives in Singapore throughout this month.
Taking steps, big and small, to celebrate Singapore World Water Day
This year, we supported Public Utilities Board’s (PUB) annual Singapore World Water Day campaign through various activations and activities at our commercial and retail properties. Its theme, “Save Water. Big ways, small ways. All OK!”, resonates with us as it shows us how each and every one of us can take small steps to shape a bluer and greener future for the next generation.
Frasers Property Singapore joined President Tharman Shanmugaratnam (centre, in blue top) and Minister for Sustainability and the Environment and Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations Ms Grace Fu (left, in blue top) at the launch of Singapore World Water Day campaign.
During the campaign’s launch on 9 March, we joined President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Ms Grace Fu, Ms Amy Khor, and Mr Baey Yam Keng, at Jurong Lake Gardens, one of the sites under PUB’s Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme, to envision how we can promote water sustainability.
The tunnel connecting Alexandra Point and Alexandra Technopark adorned in blue lights to raise awareness of the importance of water conservation.
Tenants across all Frasers Property Singapore commercial properties wear blue to support World Water Day.
As part of our efforts to raise awareness of Singapore World Water Day and the importance of water conservation, the facades of Century Square, Northpoint City, The Centrepoint, as well as the tunnel connecting Alexandra Point and Alexandra Technopark, were lit in a brilliant hue of blue. In addition, all our retail and commercial properties took part in an initiative to turn off all non-essential water features for the day, and all our commercial tenants who wore blue enjoyed a can of 100PLUS, an isotonic drink, on us! Besides this, almost 15% of water consumed groupwide is currently sourced from advanced treatment technologies and eco-friendly practices, including NEWater or its equivalent, harvested rainwater and on-site reused water to support operational activities such as irrigation and cleaning.
Northpoint City General Manager, Mr Dennis Cheong, receives the Water Efficiency Award from Mr Baey Yam Keng, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment & Ministry of Transport.
Our suburban retail mall in Yishun, Northpoint City has been recognised as one of the top water efficient performers in the retail sector where it took home the Water Efficiency Award by the PUB, Singapore's National Water Agency at the Singapore Watermark Awards Ceremony!
A biennial award organised by PUB, the Water Efficiency Award recognises the top 10th percentile of water efficient performers in their respective sectors. For the retail sector, nominees were judged based on the amount of water used per shopper daily as well as usage for operations per gross floor area annually.
We also hosted PUB’s Singapore World Water Day Quest at our suburban retail malls Causeway Point, Century Square, Eastpoint Mall, Northpoint City, Tampines 1 and White Sands, where the public could visit the Singapore World Water Day exhibition, catch mascots Water Wally and Sally roaming our corridors, and take part in daily challenges. These were part of our efforts to work with our partners, in bringing the campaign to the heart of our communities, and engage the community in fun and meaningful ways.
Harnessing our collective efforts to shed light on sustainability
All non-essential lights, including façade lights, at Frasers Property Singapore properties, were turned off for three hours from 23 March to 1 April.
Earth Hour has been a mainstay in our calendar for almost a decade, as we take the time to recognise the fundamental role light plays in our everyday life as well as the importance of energy conservation. This year, we took it a step further to extend the practice beyond one hour on Earth Hour. From 23 March to 1 April 2024, all of our retail and commercial properties turned off all non-essential lighting features, including façade lights, for three hours. Through these efforts, we managed to reduce our energy consumption by close to 10,000 kWh, which is enough to charge an electric car 174 times, equating to driving 72,000km on the road.
From left to right: Frasers Property Singapore and SP Power representatives, Mr Michael Lim, Mr Ivan Tan, Mr S Harsha, Ms Soon Su Lin, Mr Richard Ng and Ms Anthea Lee signed a solar panel partnership agreement on 9 April 2024.
As part of our efforts to incorporate more renewable energy resources, we inked a partnership with SP Group in April 2024 to install close to 4,500 square meters of solar panels across seven of our properties by this year, in the largest single solarisation roll-out for retail malls to-date. Our other partnerships with SP Group include the development of the distributed district cooling network in Tampines, and the formation of an island-wide EV charging network. This partnership with SP Group also aligns with our Groupwide target to install 215 MW of renewable energy on our properties by 2030. As of FY23, we achieved 18.6 GWh of solar generated on our properties groupwide, representing a year-on-year increase of over 16%.
Member of Parliament for Changi Simei, Jessica Tan, joined students from Changkat Changi Secondary School at an eco-exhibition at Eastpoint Mall.
Our malls also became spaces for the community to come together and have meaningful conversations about eco-conscious practices. For instance, we were privileged to support Changkat Changi Secondary School, by hosting an interactive eco-exhibition of final year projects on sustainability by their Secondary 4 and 5 students. Through these ground-up projects, students engaged members of the public in meaningful conversations on four sustainability topics: reducing waste, saving energy, water conservation, and the practice of the “5Rs”. Thank you, Changkat Changi Secondary School, for showing us that each of us can take proactive steps towards a greener future!
Furthermore, our commercial tenants from ABN AMRO, ABS Consulting, ARUP, Cooley, Microsoft, Vialto Partners & Worley joined us in our annual coastal clean-up at East Coast Park on 20 April. In just two hours, over 20 bags of trash weighing more than 31 kg were collected.
Building resilience within our communities
As we sought to encourage eco-conscious practices among our community, we also looked at how we can build a more compassionate community.
Our employees partnered with the Food Bank Singapore to distribute food bundles to over 1,000 households. Over the course of five sessions from 15 to 19 April, 150 employees volunteered their time to pack and distribute food bundles. These bundles were distributed to beneficiaries from 10 organisations, including Beyond Social Services, Care Corner Singapore, and Thye Hua Kwan Social Service Hub. We even had our retail tenants join in one of the sessions to do good together!
In addition, our malls rolled out a FRx Eco-Perks campaign, which included efforts to alleviate food insecurity, reduce food and plastic waste, as well as education and outreach efforts on sustainability through workshops and daily challenges.
For the green fingers among us, we organised a guided farm tour and microgreens workshop, for Singapore-based staff at Edible Garden City, on 25 April. Through this visit, close to 40 participants explored how the local agriculture scene works with stakeholders to lower carbon emissions, and how they can integrate microgreens into their cooking habits and cuisines. They also learnt about the importance of food security — less than 10% of Singapore’s food is locally produced — so by cultivating our own microgreens and supporting local farmers, we can bolster our food resilience.
Singapore-based staff from Frasers Property had fun bonding together with their teams and learning about food sustainability during the Edible Garden City excursion.
Aligned with our Purpose – Inspiring experiences, creating places for good. – these efforts tap on the strengths of partnerships across communities, tenants, businesses and government, combining with our multi-national real estate expertise to catalyse and create lasting positive impact for communities where we operate. Our collective decarbonisation journey continues.