05 June 2015
Singapore
Organized by Ricoh Asia Pacific and Eco-Business, this year’s Eco Action Day panel discussion focused on the World Environment Day theme on sustainable consumption and production.
The panel featured distinguished speakers including Ronnie Tay, CEO, National Environment Agency; Ynse de Boer, Managing Director, Strategy and Sustainability Services, Accenture; Ariel Muller, Director, Asia Pacific, Forum for the Future; Professor Victor Savage, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore; and Vincent Lim, Managing Director, Ricoh Singapore.
(Source : Eco Action Day)
The theme is aligned with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) World Environment Day (WED) message: Seven Billion Dreams, One Planet, Consume with Care. Aptly, it was also held on WED on 5 June as the highlight of Eco Action Day, Singapore’s largest business-led environmental awareness campaign. The dialogue was attended by 100 people from business, government and civic society leaders.
In conjunction with Eco Action Day, the Eco Action Day Awards were presented to seven schools and organisations to recognise their efforts in raising awareness of the importance of sustainability. This year’s Award winners are:
- Most Creative & Most Fun Eco Award - Crescent Girls’ School
- Most Inspiring Eco Award - Loola Adventure Resort (Bintan)
- Most Inspiring Eco Award (Merit) - Starhub Ltd
- Most Effort Eco Award - Orchid Park Secondary School
- Most Effort Eco Award (Merit) - West Spring Primary School
- Best Eco Practices Award - Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Company Pte Ltd
- Best Eco Practices Award (Merit) - Samwoh Corporation
(Source : Eco Action Day)
The afternoon session kicked off with a case study by Jin Dong, IBM China. Project Green Horizon is a multi-year initiative to support China's energy and environment goals using big data. Its three components include reduction of air pollution, increase of renewable energy utilization, and improvement of energy consumption efficiency.
The afternoon panel sessions were an in-depth discussion on sustainability, both at the corporate and education levels. In the first session, moderated by Mr Terry F Yosie of World Environment Center, with panelists from Ricoh Company Ltd, IBM Research China, Keppel Land and SingTel. In Session 2, educators from Singapore Environment Institute and Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD) shared on the spreading of the sustainability message to youths.
Posters were available for corporate participants to bring back to spread the conservation message...
Eco Action Day partners for 2015 include the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS), National Environment Agency (NEA), Building and Construction Authority (BCA), Energy Market Authority (EMA), Singapore Environment Council (SEC), Singapore Compact for CSR, Singapore Business Federation, Keppel Land, Keppel Reit, Mapletree Business City, ComfortDelGro, Rice Communications and Eco-Business.
“Sustainable consumption and production does not simply imply consuming or producing lesser goods and services - it is about adopting more efficient and less resource intensive processes. As consumers, we can help by shifting our consumption patterns towards goods that use less energy, water and other resources, and by wasting less food.”
- Jessica Cheam, Editor, Eco-Business -
