Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan has urged his Indonesian counterpart to exert commercial pressure on companies behind the fires on Sumatra island that are causing the haze.

Writing on his Facebook page, Mr Balakrishnan said that he had spoken to Indonesian Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya and expressed Singapore’s deep distress with the situation.

Nothing that the current haze is the worst in seven years, and that the haze has practically become an annual occurrence, Mr Balakrishnan suggested that Mr Kambuaya name the companies responsible for the haze.

Singapore is also waiting for Indonesia to publish the concession maps. Such maps, combined with satellite photos which are updated daily, would enable authorities to pinpoint the errant companies.

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Source: TODAY

Derrick Ng is a 32-year-old hawker. But behind the humble demeanor lies an entrepreneur with a great passion and dedication towards green agriculture.

“Fish soup is a family business and my dad has been cooking for the past 17 years,” explains Ng, who began with a personal choice to eat naturally grown vegetables, before growing it into an opportunity to turn his hawker business into a sustainable one.

Living in high-rise, urban Singapore, the very idea of gardening, let alone farming, may seem remote to most.

But that didn’t stop the owner of Wang Yuan Fish Soup stalls in Tampines to embrace the notion that the best gardens are the ones that feed you, and in his case, his patrons.

The idea of using organic greens in his fish soup came to him when he asked himself: “What is so unique about my fish soup?”

That prompted some market research that revealed a growing trend of healthy eating among consumers.

“As the economy evolves…people [become] more affluent, they start to pay a lot of attention to healthcare, and their mindsets will change.

“I’m positioning myself towards this direction.”

When Ng started helping his father at the food stall, he sourced organic produce from local suppliers. But this resulted in costs that were too high for the business to succeed against its competitors.

“When you do the price comparison, you’re losing money. Every bowl you churn out is losing money. I [thought], this is not the way,” says Ng of the impetus for his second round of research.

He decided that the only way for him to sustain the costs is by controlling the resource, and the resource, he discovered, would be the vegetables used in the soup.

Ng was by then already growing the greens that went into his family’s meal, so it didn’t take him long to realise that he could take the same route for his family’s fish soup business too.

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Source: Channel NewsAsia

The National Environment Agency (NEA) on Monday said it has alerted the Indonesian Ministry of Environment of the haze situation in Singapore.

It has also urged the Indonesian authorities to look into urgent measures to mitigate the transboundary haze occurrence.

In a statement, NEA said it would continue to monitor the situation closely and provide further updates when necessary.

The statement came as the 3-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) reading went beyond the 100 mark, putting the air quality in the unhealthy range.

The index read 110 at 5pm on Thursday.

NEA also advised children, the elderly and those with heart or lung diseases to reduce prolonged or heavy outdoor activities in view of the haze. Others should also limit prolonged or heavy outdoor activities.

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Source: Channel NewsAsia

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BILBAO, Spain: National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan has urged cities to continuously transform themselves to stay relevant.

Wrapping up the World Cities Summit Mayors Forum in Bilbao on June 14, Mr Khaw said if cities choose to rely on practices from the past, they will be overtaken by other emerging cities.

He said change is part of the process that enables cities to rejuvenate and to revitalise themselves but cities must manage change sensitively to enable their people to feel that their lives have become better with change, and not be overwhelmed by change.

Mr Khaw believes technology will be key to a city’s sustainability.

“Technology will continue to prop up to assist us in how to run the economy in a more sustainable way. Another good example is traffic, cars. Technology in that area will change and we hope there will be more electric cars”

This year’s forum includes a business summit for the first time.

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Source: Channel NewsAsia

Funding and awareness were the two main problems raised by social enterprises in Singapore at the Impact Forum on Friday.

The conference focused on turning capital markets into forces for social good.

Experts said a social stock exchange could help these socially-conscious but commercially-run businesses kill two birds with one stone.

There are roughly 200 social enterprises in Singapore, according to the Social Enterprise Association.

The funding model for most of them is like a “sandwich”, where one has money coming from the top – the government and big organisations – and money coming from the bottom, referring to friends and family.

It is the “meat” that needs some beefing up.

Ben Pwee of the Ben Pwee Foundation, said: “There needs to be a lot more players from civic society that would be willing to step up and resource some of these good ideas, help them with their business models, their finance proposals, so that it is robust enough for them to go from prototype, to pilot, to scale. I think that is one of the biggest challenges in that space.”

Some said that a social stock exchange could also help close the gap.

Click here to read the full article.

Source: Channel NewsAsia

Buildings are insidious energy guzzlers: 40 per cent of energy consumption is attributed to buildings. And with air conditioning alone taking up 60 per cent of the electricity consumed in a typical Singapore building, lots more can be done about it.

“Creating a good air-conditioning system is not just about having efficient equipment; it’s also about designing the system to suit the characteristics of buildings,” said Mr Cheng Sin Yew, Country Manager at Trane, the company that provided the chiller systems used in Gardens by the Bay and in about 70 per cent of the buildings along the Orchard Road belt.

Air conditioning is relevant to the move towards green or energy-efficient buildings, especially in Singapore. The green-building market in Singapore will grow between 33 and 68 per cent from 2012 to 2015, according to the SmartMarket Report on World Green Building Trends released this February by McGraw-Hill Construction, and the accompanying demand for green energy systems is rising. “Over the past ten years, we’ve seen the (air-conditioning) industry go from push to pull — suppliers used to have to push high-efficiency machines to building owners, but now building owners are demanding these machines,” said Mr Cheng.

On what can be done to make more Singapore buildings energy efficient, Mr Lee Eng Lock, Technical Director at Trane, said: “The question should, instead, be this: What stops Singapore from having highly energy efficient buildings everywhere?”

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Source: TODAY

Future residents in new towns such as Punggol, Bidadari, Tampines North and Tengah could benefit from a new modelling tool that will help the Housing and Development Board (HDB) decide how best to site flats to optimise wind flow, or where to locate solar panels to generate energy most efficiently.

The tool is being developed by the HDB in collaboration with two leading European companies: Electricite de France (EDF) and Veolia Environnement Recherche et Innovation (VERI).

It will be designed to simulate various built environments and recommend an optimal scenario to create the desired living environment.

“The tool will reduce the risk of physical trial and error by providing a virtual platform for testing a planned environment before developments are actually implemented,” the HDB said in a statement yesterday.

The HDB will be able to simulate the various new urban solutions introduced to drive energy efficiency, effective waste management, water recycling, rainwater collection, thermal comfort and efficient transportation networks.

Click here to read the full article.

Source: TODAY

The Waste Management Symposium is jointly organised by the Waste Management and Recycling Association of Singapore (WMRAS), National Environment Agency (NEA) and International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) and supported by Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA).

This event will provide insights into the opportunities and trends for the waste management and recycling market in the region, and will be complemented by a discourse into more technical issues in the afternoon.

A networking lunch and an evening cocktail reception are included in the full-day programme, which will provide participants with the opportunity to exchange ideas and connect with key stakeholders in the expanding waste management market.

Download the symposium brochure and registration form at http://www.wmras.org.sg/event/waste-management-symposium-2013/.

A rooftop set-up capable of harvesting solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen has been developed by a team of researchers led by Dr Ernest Chua, Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering at the National University of Singapore.

Known as the Photocatalysis-Electrolysis-Photovoltaic Tri-Hybrid System, it captures solar energy through solar panels to power the electrolytic process that splits water into its constituent elements through applying direct current, with specially engineered photocatalytic chemicals enhancing the rate of that splitting in the presence of sunlight.

Hydrogen gas, used in fuel-cell vehicles and a major component of synthetic fuel, is produced in this system at 99.8 per cent purity and at a rate of 100–120 litres per hour (or roughly 1kg per day, under standard compression conditions). At this rate, the hydrogen used directly as fuel could power the communal lights of one floor of a building, which could mean up to $1,500 of annual cost savings per floor of a typical HDB block.

“By using renewable resources such as water and sunlight, our method offers an inexpensive and clean way to produce hydrogen,” said Asst Prof Chua. “The system can be installed easily on building rooftops, converting them into energy-generating buildings.” This reduces their carbon footprint and brings them closer to becoming green buildings, he explained.

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Source: Channel NewsAsia