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Thinking about reducing waste, and better managing it, is key to reduce our over-consumption of materials and to decrease the use of energy we need to produce them. In fact we have to think from waste management to material management & optimization.
Moreover, Singapore being a small island, it is of vital importance to reduce and better manage our waste.
Read more about Singapore's waste strategy on towardszerowaste SG website.
Our solutions, as a result, do not talk only about where and how to recycle but more importantly on how to avoid waste in the first place.
Measuring and monitoring waste generation are useful for reporting purposes and to identify losses of value. Measuring will help you also to define a baseline. You can then build a strategy to reduce waste whenever you can and then recycle the remaining.
1. Request your contractor to report on the quantity collected.
2. Verify the accuracy of the data. Data should be reported via two formats:
Request the calibration certificate of the weighbridge and conduct spot checks of the items to verify that the conversion kg/item or kg/L is still valid.
3. Track waste generation and calculate KPI to identify possible drifts in waste generation (kg of waste/tonne of products for instance).
Consider hiring a competent consultant to implement metering and monitoring processes, as well as to conduct a waste audit. It will greatly help you in prioritising opportunities and identified the most suitable technologies for your facility. See below solution to conduct a waste audit.
For measuring waste in offices, see our solutions in green office category.
Verifying your current waste process and measuring your actual waste amount is important to know your first priorities.
When conducting a waste audit, you need to follow this process:
1. Identify all waste generation points (rooms, machinery, working station where discards are generated)
2. For each waste generation points:
3. For each waste streams, look for upstream and downstream opportunities.
Separately, assess:
Consider hiring a competent consultant to conduct a waste audit.
Recycling and waste management are complicated. So make the communication as simple and straightforward as possible.
Communication (signage) is done via colours, words, and symbols.
Make sure that the signage for waste generation is consistent throughout your facility (and ideally consistent with common practices in Singapore).
Report to your staff the waste management performances and highlight the environmental benefits from it. For instance: "10 tonnes of cardboard was recycled: we together saved 240 trees".
Adapt your infrastructure to the type and quantity of discards you generate.
This includes:
It is important to raise awareness and regularly train all stakeholders.
They are 3 parties involved to train:
Provide them clear information and guidance. You may design the trainings with a specialist.
For your staff, train them for waste management at work but also at their home. Start with helping them understand what is recyclable or not.
Follow Standards and Get Certified:
A certification is a confirmation by a third party that a company complies with a standard of reference. A certification on waste management performances proves that the company is taking action to minimise its environmental impacts & helps to put in place strong processes. A certification can also be a useful marketing tool for companies that want to push their sustainability agenda.
A standard is a set of rules that defines a framework in which a company should operate. There are several standards in Singapore and internationally that frame practices around waste management for different facilities or different waste stream. A company should therefore follow the standard(s) that fits its requirements.
More and more standards exist nowadays and they are all different. However, despite the diversity of standards, it is important to know that not all of them are equally recognized (see below additional resources). It may therefore be interesting to get advice from a specialist (see below suppliers).
Green Teams, facility managers and operation managers should ally forces to provide data, define an adapted strategy for waste system and build a business case for winning senior management support. See our starter kit and Engaging People on a sustainable journey page for ideas.
Unlike energy, waste is a tangible asset and easy to comprehend for staff. Be transparent and describe how discards are reused and recycled.
Continuously monitor results of your improved waste system, correct wrong practices, set higher targets annually. Ask the help of a professional if need be.
The « sustainability journey » may feel overwhelming sometimes, but you are not alone.
Our Buddies have tried, succeeded, failed to implement change in their companies. They share their experience so you can learn, take shortcuts, get inspired and ask questions.
Everybody can become a Buddy and give back to the community; if you are keen, get in touch with us.
Founder and Director of the consulting business Zero Waste City, Rémi provides engineering consulting services to large commercial and industrial facilities on waste management, energy efficiency, and packaging design.
He has gained a strong experience as a consultant covering a wide range of industries and technologies in New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore.
He is a certified TRUE Advisor (Total Resource Use Efficiency) by the U.S. Green Building Council Inc. This certification recognised his knowledge in Zero Waste programs and his ability to support businesses to achieve the TRUE Zero Waste certification.
Mary has founded Journey Makers to support organisations in their online presence blending customer experience and employee experience. She was previously in charge of Customer Experience for Lyreco Asia and worked on accelerating Digital and Marketing activities. In 2020, she was appointed sustainability ambassador as well for the region, as the topic was becoming a strategic one for the company. Thriving to drive the change internally and externally, she launched a Green Team that she co-led with her colleague.
Prior to this role, Mary had made her career essentially in the hospitality industry at global and regional role, from trade marketing, sales to Digital marketing. Before moving to Singapore in 2015, she was based in Dubai, UAE and France.
Li Seng is the founder of Green Nudge, a social enterprise that supports businesses and communities to achieve positive environmental impact through activities such as coastal cleanups and workshops, outreach talks and sustainability consulting. By raising awareness and co-creating call-to-actions with various stakeholders on sustainability efforts, Green Nudge aims to create a normative shift in the way we create and deal with waste to achieve a low carbon, zero waste future for Singapore.
Li Seng’s previous experience in the public sector in the central bank of Singapore dealing with financial regulations, combined with his current roles in the community and social enterprise sector reinforced his belief that effective public policies need to be supported by ground-up actions and engagement. Playing an interfacing role within the tri-sector, Li Seng is able to provide sectoral knowledge through a system thinking lens to make informed decisions and strategies. He is happy to discuss disposables, sustainability of events, public education, and is familiar with corporate social responsibility and community / youth engagement.
Virgile is an academic researcher who works for the CNRS (France) and the National University of Singapore. He heads an international collaborative lab between Singapore and France at the mechanobiology institute.
He is also in charge of the transition towards more sustainable practices in the lab and in the institute. He has already implemented various actions covering energy efficiency, consumables usage reduction, waste management...
With 17 years of experience in IT across different sectors and industries, Benoit managed a team focusing on project management and IT application support in Singapore. In 2017, he was one of the founders, and later on leader of Credit Agricole CIB's first green team in Singapore. Since 2022, he has started in France a new adventure within Credit Agricole Assurances (CAA) and managed up to 24 people, in software integration team.
Recently, in September 2023, he was promoted to ECODESIGN Coach within CAA. He is creating and deploying a new framework for all projects to add a sustainability dimension to help CAA reduce its environmental impact.
I started my career as a mechanical engineer for 5 years and joined TayPaper Recycling in 2018. Tay Paper Recycling has grown from an informal scrap dealer to now a leading paper focused recycling company in Singapore. On top of just recycling, we also offer confidential data disposal services to help clients comply with PDPA, GDPR and recycle at the same time. I am now working at KGS, an e-waste and data sanitization company.
Mun Wei is the founder and principal consultant of SustainableSG, which provides advisory and training services in sustainability, strategy, risk and entrepreneurship.
He has worked with corporate, government and non-profit clients on strategy and implementation, reviewing organizational programmes and targets related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, benchmarking and communicating sustainability and other corporate programmes and achievements, promoting inclusive hiring, developing compliance policies and reports, and formulating innovative business models.
He is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
Organizing weekly beach cleanup sessions over the past three years gave Yasser a deep appreciation for both coastal and inland nature environments. Other than being an environmental advocate, he emphasizes on the value of community building, and actively connects various organizations & individuals together in the spirit of civic engagement.
Yasser is currently the Chief Stridy Officer at Stridy which is a not-for-profit that focuses on tackling waste management issues worldwide such as littering
Tomo is a seasoned development professional having lived and worked in various corners of the world from the Tibetan plateau, Indian drylands, Indonesian tropics, to Japanese metropolises. He has extensive field experience working for international and local development NGOs across Asia and Africa, including Kopernik, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the World Bank. He was formerly an Assistant Professor at the Global Leadership Program at the University of Tokyo.
Tomo has a BA in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and was an Asia Pacific Leadership Program Fellow (2008) and Innovation Fellow (2020) at the East-West Center. In 2014 Tomo was awarded the Dalai Lama’s Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award.
Carolin is a passionate and driven entrepreneur and sustainability advocate. She is involved in many projects and initiatives that contribute to reducing our environmental impact.
In 2020, Carolin founded the social enterprise susGain.
susGain is a rewards-based engagement app that focuses on driving behavioural change within communities (corporates, schools, NGOs etc.) whilst measuring ESG reportable data on the impact created. By better connecting the environmentally and socially conscious stakeholders, susGain hopes to accelerate the change towards more sustainable communities.
Prior to susGain, Carolin worked as Account & Project Manager in an HR consulting and change management firm, where she was responsible for business development and end-to-end project management of training and consulting projects across APAC.
In July 2021, Carolin won the Finder's Expatpreneur Sustainability Award. susGain has also been recognized by Global Initiatives at the Sustainable Business Awards Singapore 2020/21.
