There was a significant rise in the amount and proportion of environmentally focused community investments (from S$1,250 to S$120,000) in FY07/08, including participation in the International Earth Festival and our support of an Environmental Learning Hub at our adopted school, Greenridge Secondary. Our initiatives with the community are driven by the Environmental Policy Statement of the CSR Policy which states the company’s commitment towards educating the community to be responsible agents to the environment. Kindly note that the environmental initiatives listed below are up to period ending Dec 08.

• - 1 Degree Up Challenge

  • This is a joint initiative organised by PowerSeraya and our landlord Mapletree, calling upon all companies at HarbourFront Towers to raise their office temperatures by 1°C on World Environment Day 2008 with the aim of spreading the message of energy conservation and lowering CO₂ emissions. Preparations for this joint initiative involved the sending of letters to all companies in the office towers rallying them to participate in this meaningful initiative. There is also a month long poster campaign to raise the awareness of this initiative which was done in partnership with the National Environment Agency.

  • This initiative received an overwhelming participation rate of 100% with an outreach of about 40 companies covering an estimated 3,500 office workers.

• - Earth Hour Initiative

  • PowerSeraya had its own Earth Hour Initiative on 31 March 2008 where office lights at HarbourFront Towers were switched off for an hour during lunchtime. This is an initiative aimed at inculcating the habit of switching off the lights among the employees in the name of energy conservation. We also wanted to bring this simple but yet meaningful message to our customers and extended this initiative during Seraya Energy’s Customer Night event on 28 March 2008 where customers made pledges in support of Earth Hour. 

     

• - Excursion to Climate Change exhibition

  • In July 2008, the Family Life Committee of the Vibrancy Club and the Environmental Department to the Climate Change exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre. A total of 80 people participated in this event aimed at educating employees and their families on the topic of climate change in a fun and informal way. The exhibition ended with a buffet lunch and a climate change quiz which saw our employees’ children vying for the ten prizes to be won. From the quality of answers that were submitted for the quiz, we could see that the children gained a greater understanding of the science and impacts of climate change and the action that they can take to make a difference to our fragile planet.

• - Singapore River Cleanup

  • In May 2008, we organised a Singapore River Cleanup with staff and volunteers from the Waterways Watch Society (WWS) to collect litter along the Singapore River. Through this event, our staff volunteers gained an appreciation of the work WWS does in keeping our waterways clean and healthy and the role of the community in maintaining our environment clean and green. Besides volunteering, we also donated 10 bicycles to WWS in the same year. The bicycles are now being used by WWS to run their bike patrols along the waterways of Singapore. WWS is a special volunteer group tasked to bring people together to monitor, restore and protect the aesthetics of our waterways. WWS which won the President’s Award for the Environment in 2006, is one of PUB (Public Utilities Board) 3P (People, Private, Public) partners and plays an important role in raising public awareness on water conservation as well as maintaining our waterways clean and beautiful.

• - International Coastal Cleanup

  • PowerSeraya and students from Singapore Polytechnic joined hands for the first time in the International Coastal Cleanup on 20 September 2008. The annual International Coastal Cleanup is a global effort by volunteers to clean up the coastal shorelines, rivers and lakes of each country. The aim is to remove as much debris from the shorelines around the world and at the same time collects ‘trash’ information for the purposes of public education and the formulation of legislation or regulations on marine pollution prevention. In all, we had about 25 volunteers who covered a stretch of beach along the East Coast Park, recording information of different kinds of litter they picked up along the beach. The recorded information is then collated by Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, the organising party for the coastal clean-up in Singapore, for use by the relevant government agencies.

• - Outreach event by Greenridge Secondary School

  • On 26th July 08, Greenridge Secondary School (the adopted school of PowerSeraya) organised their annual outreach event ‘Care for the Community, Care for the Environment’ at Bukit Panjang Plaza with the aim of raising the environmental as well as cultural awareness among the Zhenghua community. PowerSeraya not only sponsored this event but also participated with our employee volunteers creating stuffed toys out of recycled material with the Greenridge students in preparation for this event. This event saw students displaying their environmental projects that they have been working on for the past 6 months as well as exhibits on the theme of recycling, environmental health and our heritage.

  • In July 2007, PowerSeraya also sponsored an innovative exhibition called ‘A Green Way of Life” – A Digitalised Perspective’, which was held to showcase the artistic talents of its 230 students based on the theme of ‘Recycling and Conservation’. The public works of art were presented in various mediums such as digital art, gaming and videography and displayed at the Bukit Panjang Plaza.

  • Through this event the students not only gained a greater awareness on environmental issues but also developed project management and presentation skills which would be helpful in their later years. PowerSeraya is glad to be playing a contributing role in nurturing our youths to be environmentally responsible citizens in our society.

• - Public conference on climate change

  • This conference which was organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs in collaboration with the Civil Exchange (Hong Kong) was aimed at educating the public towards the risks, opportunities and cooperation on climate change in Asia, and possible strategies to tackle the issue. Held at the Singapore Management University on 15 May 2008, the event was sponsored by PowerSeraya and saw a distinguished panel of climate change experts and think tanks from USA, China, Japan and Hong Kong, who shared their knowledge on various issues related to climate change. The conference ended with a healthy Q&A sessions where the audience and the speaker panel went into a lively exchange of debate and discussion on complex issues surrounding climate change.

• - International Earth Festival – 7/7/7

  • This event which was held at the One Fullerton in Singapore on 7 to 8 July 07,  saw PowerSeraya setting up a booth to raise awareness about climate change and other environmental issues to the general public. Some of the event highlights were stage performances, interactive games, educational talks as well as on-site workshops. This event, which was endorsed by the global ‘Friends of Live Earth’ campaign, the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) and Eco-Singapore, was aimed to kick-start positive habits of energy saving to show people that every single effort helps towards the larger picture on Global Warming.

• - Environmental Learning Hub

  • PowerSeraya committed a sum of S$170,000 over two years to establish an Environmental Learning Hub (ELH) at Greenridge Secondary School. In FY07, we disbursed our first contribution of S$85,000 to the school. The ELH, when fully constructed in 2009, will function as a resource centre for the eleven schools in the West 6 cluster with an estimated outreach potential of 11,000 students and 770 education staff. It also serves to raise the environmental awareness of the Zhenghua community through talks and seminars by invited speakers. Plans for the ELH include interactive displays on energy conservation and alternative energy sources, a learning lab on the environment and a mini-tropical forest. 

     

• - Semakau CEO (Corporate Environmental Outreach) Run

  • On 19 November 2008, PowerSeraya donated S$30,000 to the Semakau CEO Run, a fund-raising event to support the environmental work of six non-governmental organisations which include the Singapore Environment Council, the Nature Society (Singapore), ECO Singapore, the Restroom Association of Singapore, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and the Halogen Foundation Singapore. Our Managing Director took a personal interest in this event which saw him participating in the 5km run which is held on Pulau Semakau, Singapore’s offshore landfill island
  • This is the second time PowerSeraya has participated in this event  since the inaugural one held in 2007.

     

• - Clean and Green Singapore 2008

  • PowerSeraya sponsored Singapore’s largest environmental event – Clean and Green Singapore (CGS) 2008. The launch of the event (on 31 Oct 2008), which was graced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, saw the company sponsoring among others, two energy-themed game booths where the public could learn simple energy saving tips through the games. CGS 2009 is an annual campaign with a string of environmental events/initiatives organized throughout the year to raise environmental awareness and inspire the public to care for the environment. Some of the fringe events include the Recycling Day held at Yuhua Square, CGS School Carnival held at Suntec City and Central Singapore Green Reading Month held at various libraries.