Sustainability reporting: leading by example

AMID growing international concerns about climate change, the Singapore government has taken a significant step forward to green the public sector with the publication last month of its first environmental sustainability report, the GreenGov.SG report.

Singapore is the first country in Asia, and among the first in the world, to publish a whole-of-government environmental sustainability report, the significance of which extends far beyond the disclosure of data. It is often said that “what gets measured, gets managed”. The report will focus the attention of internal and external stakeholders on the public sector’s environmental performance, inevitably elicit both criticism and praise, and, over time, drive further improvements in decarbonisation and how environmental issues are managed.

One area where more can be done is to include Scope 3 carbon emissions. The report addresses only Scope 1 and 2 emissions, whereas Scope 3 emissions, from an organisation’s value chain, often make up the bulk of its carbon footprint. CDP, a non-profit that runs an international environmental impact disclosure system, estimated that upstream Scope 3 supply chain emissions were on average 11.4 times greater than Scope 1 and 2 emissions.