Throughout the year, the company organises environmental-related activities that seek to educate and galvanise our staff into action. The company places importance in internalising environmental-friendly practices among the staff so they too can become advocates of the environment to the community they interact with.

Eco Bazaar
In January 2009, an eco bazaar was organised at HarbourFront Towers a week before Chinese New Year. At the bazaar, items such as mini plants, stationery made from recycled material and organic foodstuff were put on sale. The main focus of the bazaar was to promote the attributes of indoor air quality in the office through the use of mini plants. Attractive incentives were provided in the form of discounts for the purchase of plants to encourage staff to own one. In addition, staff who wore green attire at the bazaar were given token gifts for their support on the green message. Overall, the bazaar drew a good response where close to 50% of the staff purchased at least an indoor plant.

Earth Hour
Every year since the inception of the Earth Hour Initiative (which usually falls on the last weekend of March), our company has brought this initiative to our staff by organising it during a work day. On 27 March 2009, our offices (including a few offices at our power plant) had our lights turned off at 11am. During the lights-off period, staff was encouraged to take advantage of natural lighting to do their work by rolling up the window blinds. A lunchtime awareness talk on energy conservation was organised and this was followed by energy efficiency games which provided useful tips that staff could pick up from in a fun way .

Plastic Bottle Recycling campaign
To raise awareness on the issue of plastic bottle recycling, the company organised a month long campaign to collect used plastic bottles in our office. During the period 24 June to 25 July 2009, an estimated 250 used plastic bottles were collected and subsequently recycled to construct a feature wall of the Energy Learning Hub (refer to Chapter 8.1) of our adopted school, Greenridge Secondary School.

Sustainability in a Glass Jar
In October, a terrarium workshop was organised at our corporate headquarters to get staff to learn about sustainability in a fun way. The workshop, which received an overwhelming response, was led by Mr. Lee, a teaching staff from our adopted school Greenridge Secondary School.

During the workshop, staff were given an introduction of the origins of terrariums as well as the natural cycles at play within the tiny ecosystem enclosed within the glass jar. This was followed by a step-by-step demonstration of the terrarium making process starting from the development of the pebble layers, the transfer of soil and mini-plants into the glass jar and finally the watering cum cleaning process. The 20-odd staff who participated in the workshop demonstrated patience and creativity as they conscientiously crafted their terrariums. Staff also had to write a 50-word sustainability message describing how they felt about the workshop as well as explaining the linkage between terrariums and sustainability to win the 'Best Sustainability Message' contest.

To involve the participation of those who couldn not take part in the workshop, the terrariums made by staff were displayed in the office for a week. Staff were then invited to guess the terrarium of choice selected by our CEO John Ng (with mystery prizes to be won).

Eco-Gift Competition
During the festive month of Christmas, we organised an environmental initiatives centered on the recycling theme. In conjunction with the Christmas Eve party at our corporate headquarters, an eco-gift competition was held to get staff to use recycled office materials to creatively wrap their gift exchange presents. Altogether, a total of more than 30 staff took part in the competition to vie for the top three prizes.

The employee who garnered the top prize had creatively wrapped her present using photocopier paper and even took pains to minimise the use of adhesive tape by using string from a used shopping bag to hold the gift package. The competition was aimed at getting staff to do something fun while caring for the environment at the same time.