Singapore residents say ESG issues important, but few act on it: survey

MORE than six in 10 Singapore residents rate environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters as important in their day-to-day purchase decisions, a perception survey by communications firm SEC Newgate found.

But when specifically asked what their top three considerations would be when choosing an energy provider, only 35 per cent of respondents picked a company’s environmental practices. Their key considerations are instead price, quality, convenience and a company’s reputation, according to the survey of 1,008 residents.

Respondents who were asked for their top three priorities for Singapore’s future cited financial concerns like addressing the rising cost of living, and having secure and affordable food supplies more often than environmental issues.

Close to 40 per cent rated the need to act decisively on climate change as “extremely important”, but only 13 per cent chose it as one of the top three priorities.

Almost half (46 per cent), however, said they are willing to pay a premium for products and services from companies with stronger ESG performance, while 45 per cent stated that they are prepared to receive lower returns on their investments in companies with stronger ESG performance.

In total, more than 12,000 respondents over 12 countries and territories were polled to monitor how attitudes differ across geographies and change over time. This is the second time the poll was done.

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This year’s results confirmed that ESG awareness is significantly higher in Singapore than the study’s global average – while 72 per cent here stated that they had at least heard of the term, only 46 per cent of respondents globally have heard of “ESG” before.

Compared to last year, however, this year’s study found a slight drop in interest among Singaporean respondents in ESG issues. Rated upon 10, their interest now stands at 6.6, down from an average of 6.8 last year. This year’s global average is 6.5.

The survey also asked respondents which aspects of ESG-related activities are most important to them. This question revealed a shift in attention towards social issues, with 26 per cent now seeing it as top-of-mind, versus 16 per cent last year.

Environmental concerns still take the lion’s share of attention, with more than half of respondents picking issues such as climate change, environmental protectionism, recycling and reducing waste, and reducing carbon footprint as things that companies should focus on.

Meanwhile, the approval rating for the ESG performance of companies is at 50 per cent here, versus 36 per cent globally. More Singapore residents trust the ESG performance of the government, with 62 per cent giving an approval rating of 7 or higher out of 10.

Among companies, the ESG performance of those in the healthcare sector is most highly regarded, with 59 per cent giving it at least a rating of seven out of 10. Next in rank are the education (57 per cent), finance (53 per cent) and energy and utilities (52 per cent) sectors. 

While these sectors are now better perceived compared to last year, SEC Newgate said that the airline, construction, cosmetics, automotive, chemicals and mining sectors made the most strides in improving their scores.

The survey, meanwhile, found that consumers here are proactively searching and monitoring a company’s ESG-related activities and performance – 42 per cent claimed to research a company’s ESG activities or performance “at least sometimes”. Five per cent said they did so “frequently”.

Their top sources of information for the companies’ ESG activities and performance were search engines (48 per cent), company websites (44 per cent), social media (37 per cent), and online news articles (34 per cent).

A nuance, however, is that 43 per cent still do not trust companies’ claims about their ESG activities and performance. This is largely consistent with global findings, where 51 per cent said the same.