It is not the sole responsibility of individual stakeholders to overcome climate change challenges, drive decarbonisation efforts and achieve the ultimate goal of net zero – it is the collective effort across all industries and nations.
Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore mentioned during a speech at the Climate Leaders’ Assembly on 30 November 2023 at COP28 that: “To achieve a credible yet just transition, we need partnerships across domains.” This includes collaborations with stakeholders across governments, banks, scientists, industry players and the general public.
International collaborations are also key to achieve global climate goals. Every nation needs to work together to drive innovation, best practices and cross-border partnerships. Singapore is a good example of why cross-border collaboration is beneficial for all parties. The city-state has little access to renewable energy and relies on international cooperation in areas like the import of low-carbon energy through regional power grids. In turn, Singapore has been driving decarbonisation partnerships through various initiatives such as the Green and Shipping Corridors that provides players across ASEAN with a blueprint to transit to zero-carbon fuels.
UOB FinLab understands the importance of collaboration across industries and borders. This is why we established a vast ecosystem of government agencies, SMEs and key industry stakeholders across five markets in ASEAN – enabling our programme participants to gain access to knowledge, best practices, resources and new business prospects within our network.
REDEX, a participant from UOB FinLab’s GreenTech Accelerator programme, tapped into our ecosystem to meet industry leaders, bounce ideas off other players in the space and secure new clients. “Being in front of such a curated network opened REDEX up to many business touchpoints where we could collaborate and work with new partners. At the same time, we were able to contribute back to the space by sharing our key learnings with other industry players and our approach to long term sustainability,” said Alex Loh, Business Development Director, REDEX.
Green financing consists of a lot more than just buying solar panels and wind farms. To reach net zero by 2050, transition finance is required to support economy-wide transition strategies – providing funding support for businesses and sectors to adopt cleaner technologies, increase energy efficiency, and become greener over time.
It will include public-private partnerships such as blended finance which brings together stakeholders to contribute in complementary ways to make difficult transition projects like coal phase-out successful. To drive the greening of ASEAN, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) established Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (“FAST-P”), a Singapore blended finance initiative in collaboration with key public, private and philanthropic sector partners that aims to mobilise up to US$5 billion to finance green transition and bankable green projects in Asia.
While green financing is needed to kickstart green initiatives and adoption, education needs to go in parallel to ensure companies, especially SMEs, have a long-term understanding of how to best implement such initiatives and adapt to the ever-evolving requirements.
“Even after receiving financing, companies do not fully understand how to adopt sustainability practices and are unsure what frameworks to use,” said Chris Ang, Director of Sin Gee Huat Recycling, another participant in UOB FinLab’s GreenTech Accelerator programme. “The entire industry, public and private, plays a huge role in propelling the mass adoption of sustainability practices through education. We need to collaboratively come together and support each other through knowledge sharing, resources and even workshops such as the Sustainability Innovation Programme or the GreenTech Accelerator programme organised by UOB FinLab,” he added.
The last highlight is the launch of the Singapore-Asia Taxonomy at COP28. For those who are not familiar with taxonomy, it provides financial institutions with guidance on how to identify and classify activities that can be considered green or transitioning towards green.
The Singapore-Asia Taxonomy is a massive industry milestone for many reasons. It’s the world’s first taxonomy that sets out definitions for transition activities. Right now, most taxonomies define what is green and what is brown, leaving out the bulk of economic activities that are in-between.
Transitioning into a green business takes time and it is important to ensure this transition is clearly defined to minimise greenwashing and false claims. As such, this taxonomy will provide institutions with guidance on how to identify and classify activities that can be considered green or transitioning towards green.
By having clear definitions, we believe that ASEAN will be at the forefront of sustainability adoption as companies will have access to financing when transitioning – encouraging businesses of all sizes to begin their journey towards a climate-friendly business that collectively meets net zero goals.
UOB FinLab will continue to support SMEs across all industries looking to kick start or further implement sustainability initiatives through our ecosystem, resources, and programmes. We will implement our learnings from COP28 to ensure that SMEs in ASEAN are equipped with the latest knowledge, industry best practices and resources needed to operate a sustainable business that will stand the test of time.
UOB FinLab offers two sustainability programmes:
To learn more about UOB FinLab, click here.
Learn more about COP28: https://www.cop-pavilion.gov.sg/
It has been almost a year since the team at UOB FinLab culminated its GreenTech Accelerator 2024 (GTA). We decided to check in with one of the GreenTech participants and see the progress that is being made.
UOB FinLab AI Ready Programme empowers SMEs to adopt and scale AI, with hands-on support from AI Singapore, IMDA, and Microsoft.
Nearly a year has passed since UOB FinLab concluded its GreenTech Accelerator 2024 (GTA), and we’ve followed up with one of the participating GreenTech companies to see how things have progressed.
Senior Lecturer, Ngee Ann Polytechnic
Melvin Gan is a senior lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Business and Accountancy, where he specialises in sustainability in business management, ESG reporting, digital marketing, consumer insights, and human-centered design thinking. A founding member of the Sustainability Module Team, he has been instrumental in developing specialised curricula such as Corporate Governance and Reporting for Sustainable Business and has contributed to the growth of the Business Sustainability and Digitalisation specialisation.
Consultant & Trainer, CSO Centre
Joyce was former Commercial Director at Climate Impact Exchange (CIX), a global carbon solutions provider established by Temasek Holdings, Singapore Exchange, DBS Bank & Standard Chartered in Singapore. She was hired as part of the founding team and represented CIX in multiple public forums on decarbonisation, market development and green finance.
Joyce has close to 20 years of experience in the financial industry. She has helmed leadership roles at Singapore Exchange, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse across various business and operation units. At CIX, she worked with C-Suites, NGOs and financiers on decarbonisation solutions, global carbon market development, as well as alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for long term impact and business resilience.
Consultant & Trainer, CSO Centre
Lance is an FSA Credential Holder and GRI Certified Sustainability Professional. Throughout his corporate career, he has worked at JPMorgan, Citibank and Singapore Exchange. As a marketing and corporate communications consultant, his clients have included DBS, Singtel, UOB, Bank of Singapore as well as many other government organisations, SMEs and startups.
He currently specializes in helping corporates with ESG and sustainability reporting as a trainer and consultant. His courses have been taken by individuals and companies from all over the world and accredited by the Institute of Banking & Finance (Singapore). He is also an associate lecturer with Ngee Ann Polytechnic for various sustainability-related courses.
Designed for business owners to enhance their digital capabilities through practical learning, this programme takes businesses to the next level.
Designed for business owners to enhance their digital capabilities through practical learning, this programme takes businesses to the next level.
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