Tourism Sustainability Programme

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Pursue sustainability certification
Through the certification process, businesses can also better understand how to improve their end-to-end business processes and take stock of their sustainability capabilities to develop interventions to address areas for improvement.

For Business Operations

1. The GSTC Criteria serve as the global standards for sustainability in travel and tourism. The Criteria are used for education and awareness-raising, policy-making for businesses and government agencies and other organisation types, measurement and evaluation, and as a basis for certification. They are the result of a worldwide effort to develop a common language about sustainability in tourism. They are arranged in four pillars of (a) sustainable management, (b) socioeconomic impacts, (c) cultural impacts and (d) environmental impacts.

Depending on your industry, you may choose the appropriate Criteria accordingly:
a. GSTC Attraction Criteria
b. GSTC Industry Criteria for Hotels
c. GSTC Industry Criteria for Tour Operators
d. GSTC MICE Criteria for Venues, Event Organizers, and Events & Exhibitions

2. The Singapore MICE Sustainability Certification (MSC) Framework equips and certifies businesses for adopting sustainable practices in events and raises sustainability standards across Singapore’s MICE industry. The standards for MICE event organisers and venues within the Framework are GSTC-Recognised.
   

3. Workshop Agreement (WA) 3 Sustainable MICE – Guidelines for waste management covers guidelines and best practices for the MICE industry on setting waste management goals and reducing specific types of waste through the reduce, reuse, and recycle approach.

4. Workshop Agreement (WA) 4 Sustainable MICE – Guidelines for carbon emissions management covers guidelines and best practices for the MICE industry to establish verifiable practices for moving towards carbon-neutral events through implementing changes to reduce potential man-made emissions and offsetting the remainder with the purchase of credible carbon credits. It is applicable across the MICE supply chain, including event organisers, venue owners and operators, event builders, food and beverage providers, exhibitors and logistics providers and will cover the measurement, reduction, calculation, verification and offset of emitted Greenhouse Gas (GHG). It is applicable across the MICE supply chain, including event organisers, venues, event builders, food and beverage providers and exhibitors.

5. Events
   a. ISO 20121 Sustainable Event Management Certification
   b. Singapore Environment Council (SEC) Eco Event Certification

Certification related costs can be relevant qualifying costs for the following grants. 

1. Business Improvement Fund (BIF) by STB

Leisure events:

1. Leisure Events Fund (LEF) by STB

2. Kickstart Fund (KF) by STB

For Building Owners

1. BCA Green Mark 2021 (GM: 2021) – is an internationally recognised green building certification scheme tailored for the tropical climate. It aims to raise Singapore’s standards in energy performance and place greater emphasis on designing for maintainability, reducing embodied carbon across a building’s life cycle, using smart technologies, enhancing a building’s resilience to climate change and creating healthier environments for building users.

Green Mark Incentive Schemes by Building and Construction Authority

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Leverage innovation to support sustainable tourism outcomes
Innovation and emerging solutions in the tourism-tech space can help the transition towards a more sustainable tourism landscape.

1. Test-bedding Solutions 

• Singapore Tourism Acceleratorby STB

2. Compendium of Sustainability Solution Providers

• A collation of solution providers in carbon management, sustainability certification, sustainability reporting which can help to provide targeted solutions for your sustainability journeys.

• For building owners - Singapore is advancing our transition into a low-carbon built environment through the Singapore Green Building Masterplan (SGBMP), an initiative by Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the Singapore Green Building Council. Based on BCA’s Super Low Energy Building Technology Roadmap in exploring energy-efficiency, the hierarchy that buildings should look at are: 1) Passive Design 2) Active Solutions (i.e. energy efficiency) 3) Smart Energy Management 4) Renewable Energy.

  • Find out about the current technologies to achieve SLE in Annex A (pg 35-44) of the SLE Building Tech Roadmap.

  • Search for technology solution providers from the SLE Smart Hub - a resource centre with a centralised national database of energy-efficiency technologies with powerful tools for data analytics, for building owners and developers to achieve SLE projects.

Please note that the list does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by STB or the other government agencies. The list is to provide reference for organisations to facilitate your sustainability journeys and initiatives.

Technology/ Innovation Adoption

1. Business Improvement Fund (BIF) by STB

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Build the sustainability-related capabilities of the tourism workforce
The tourism sector is powered by its workforce. STB and other government agencies will continue to support businesses to enable the ‘greening' of tourism manpower.

1. Training Programmes Topics:

• Sustainability 101

• Sustainability Certification/ Sustainability Reporting

• Carbon Management

• Product Development/ Supply Chain Management

• Green Marketing & Storytelling

Refer to the courses
*More hotel-focused training
*More MICE-focused training 

1. Career Conversion Programme (CCP) for Sustainability Professionals by WSG

2. Training Industry Professionals in Tourism (TIP-iT) by STB

2.Industry Guidance/ Other information/ resources

• Sustainability Playbook for Enterprises by EnterpriseSG

• Decarbonisation Playbook for Tourism Businesses by STB

• Singapore Hotel Sustainability Playbook by Singapore Hotel Association (SHA)

• MICE Sustainability Initiatives and Programmes by SACEOS

• MICE Venue Sustainability Playbook by STB

• Accessibility guidelines and best practices by SG Enable

• 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) Programme and Resources by NEA

• Guide to Implementing Environmentally-Friendly Best Practices for Events by MSE

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