Jessica Lim, The Straits Times AsiaOne 17 Oct 15;
With a click of the mouse on Sept 30, an electronic form was e-mailed to 17 paper companies carrying the Singapore Environment Council's (SEC) Green Label.
The label signifies that the companies are eco-friendly, and the form was for them to declare that they did not source from alleged haze culprits like Asia Pulp and Paper (APP).
The move by the SEC, a non-governmental organisation, led by a core team of five staff members and a board of 11 directors, triggered a chain reaction.
On Oct 5, it released the names of 10 companies that signed the form. Two days later, it suspended the Green Label of APP's local distributor, Universal Sovereign Trading. By noon on Oct 7, supermarket chain FairPrice began pulling APP products off its shelves. Sheng Siong and Prime Supermarket followed suit.
SEC executive director Edwin Seah said: "When the National Environment Agency named the companies it was investigating, that was the spark. We needed to act fast to protect the credibility of our label. We also wanted to allay consumer fears."
He said the SEC received about a dozen calls from members of the public after the NEA, on Sept 25, said it had served APP a legal notice to supply information about its subsidiaries in Singapore and Indonesia.
"We were surprised at the speed at which things unfolded. After that, we thought, we should keep the momentum going," Mr Seah told The Straits Times.
The SEC went on to send the form to other supermarkets, and to 210 wood-related product makers.
The intensity of the haze, NEA's announcement, and the fact that APP had its green label suspended, gave the SEC an opportunity.
Mr Seah said: "We were at the right place, at the right time. It gave us the chance to push businesses to source more sustainably. Retailers are finally starting to sit up and take notice. We've never got this level of interest before."
The SEC now receives about 10 calls a day from businesses that want to know how to certify their products, up from five previously.
Mr Seah, who joined the SEC in October last year as its communications director, took over as interim executive director in February. He took on his current role in April.
Former SEC chief Jose Raymond stepped down in January to join the Singapore Sports Hub.
By June, Mr Seah and newly appointed members of his core team - assistant executive director Gerard Christopher, head of eco-certification Kavickumar Muruganathan, senior executive for environmental outreach Siti Farhana Mahadi, and director of communications Shirley Chua - had a new focus: consumers and the demand side of sustainability.
Said Mr Seah: "We thought getting consumers involved would trigger the supply side, and manufacturers would become more responsible."
The SEC, funded by corporate sponsorships and income from its certification scheme, will be speaking to each of the businesses that has signed the form - 71, so far - to encourage them to do more.
Mr Seah said the SEC will advocate having green corners or aisles in supermarkets as well as standees to explain sustainability and eco-certification to consumers.
From January, it will also make it compulsory for all its clients with Green Labels - more than 3,000 of them - to print the label on products they sell. Now, only about half do so, for reasons such as costs.
At least one firm, tissue paper supplier Tipex, has asked the SEC to print stickers to paste on its goods.
"They now see the value in it," said Mr Seah, adding that it costs $1,500 to get certified under the Singapore Green Label Scheme, and $1,000 each year to renew it.
The SEC will also start certifying palm oil products soon, and will reach out to firms selling them to come on board. Already, one major chocolate firm here is interested in getting its chocolates certified.
The SEC is also working with the Government on its decision, announced last month, to start buying from more sustainable sources, to influence supply chains.
Mr Seah said the public can expect a more active and engaging SEC in the days to come. However, just as he sees the importance of "striking while the iron is hot", he said change takes time. "It has to come in phases, be long term... We will continue to push on."
Singapore Businesses Try to Choke Off Sources of Haze
Private-sector moves to combat haze are new development for Singapore
JAKE MAXWELL WATTS Wall Street Journal 15 Oct 15;
SINGAPORE—As a swath of Southeast Asia chokes on a cloud of smog caused by forest fires in Indonesia, Singapore businesses have taken matters into their own hands, halting sales of products from companies suspected of contributing to the haze and agreeing to limit their access to credit.
Singapore’s financial sector, which dominates corporate financing in much of Southeast Asia, is the latest to take action. The Association of Banks in Singapore on Oct. 8 published new industry guidelines that local banks said raised the city-state’s responsible-financing regulations in line with international reporting standards.
Meanwhile, several of Singapore’s largest supermarket chains, including NTUC FairPrice and Sheng Siong Group Ltd., have pulled from their shelves products such as Nice and Paseo toilet paper and tissue sourced from Indonesian company Asia Pulp & Paper Group, one of the world’s largest paper and pulp producers. The moves come after Indonesian officials accused APP of contributing to the haze through its plantations in Indonesia. APP said it has a zero-burn policy on its land and is working with authorities to put out the fires.
Authorities in Singapore and Indonesia have sent notice to several smaller companies, mostly Indonesian, asking for information as part of their investigations.
Since the 1980s, forest fires have been an annual occurrence in Indonesia’s vast agricultural lands, with many caused by landowners looking to burn forests and scrub land to clear way for palm-oil plantations or trees for pulp and paper. This year’s burning, which has been exacerbated by dry weather, could become the worst on record and cost Southeast Asia about $14 billion in economic losses as the resulting haze spreads, according to estimates from the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research.
Hazardous smoke slowly swept across Southeast Asia in recent weeks, as blazes raged in Indonesia's peatlands. The WSJ's Diana Jou explains why this year’s peatland fires are causing longer periods of haze.
These moves from the private sector in Singapore are a new development for the island nation, where citizens have long complained about haze but relied mostly on their government to manage the relationship with Indonesia.
The new banking guidelines, which all three of Singapore’s public banks said they would adhere to, include recommendations that improve transparency and specifically mention deforestation and air pollution as issues that must be considered when providing financing. The measures were part of a broader effort to raise standards in Singapore that went beyond those issues.
The guidelines “basically create a level of awareness, understanding and due diligence that will help to effectively take financing away…from players who do not have proper sustainability practices,” said Jeanne Stampe, Asia finance and commodities specialist at environmental group WWF International.
DBS Bank Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest lender by assets, said the firm finances some palm-oil companies but conducts assessments about how such companies address such risks. “Of the palm-oil plantation companies we bank, all have zero-burning policies. In the event a client is found to be in breach, we are prepared to re-assess the banking relationship,” a DBS representative said.
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. and UOB Group, Singapore’s second- and third-largest lenders, respectively, said they too are committed to adhering to the new ABS guidelines. They are “a step in the right direction,” said OCBC’s chief risk officer, Vincent Choo. UOB’s managing director for country and credit risk management, Frankie Phua, said UOB would reassess its relationship with any client found to have breached environmental, social or governance standards and that it expects companies it finances to meet prevailing regulatory standards.
The private sector in Singapore joins a multinational effort aimed at fighting the haze, which has been bolstered this year by a new law in Singapore that allows legislators to prosecute local and foreign companies involved in illegal forest burning. Firefighters, equipment and military personnel have been contributed by Singapore, Malaysia, Russia and Japan, joining thousands of personnel in Indonesia trying to douse the smoldering peat lands.
The Marina Bay Sands resort and Singapore flyer are shrouded by haze, Oct. 13. ENLARGE
The Marina Bay Sands resort and Singapore flyer are shrouded by haze, Oct. 13. PHOTO: EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
Singapore’s retailers haven’t decided how long their boycott of certain products such as those from APP will last. “We are awaiting further information and investigation by the authorities before resuming our purchase and sales, or considering our next steps,” a Sheng Siong representative said.
When asked about the retailers’ actions, an APP representative said neither the company nor its suppliers use fire to clear land. Because of the current dry conditions in Indonesia, the source of many fires is difficult to determine.
“We will disengage with any supplier that is proven to be doing so,” the APP representative said. “To be clear, there are fires within our suppliers’ concessions, but these are not started by APP or its suppliers.”
