The talk of the town, or around the world, right now is sustainability. With growing concerns to ensure a sustainable future, countries around the world are implementing policies and efforts to combat climate change.
In Singapore, the government has taken the initiative to lead the way to pursue sustainable development with its GreenGov.SG initiative. This initiative forms a component and enabler of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, which in turn supports the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda).
Under GreenGov.SG, the public sector aims to attain ambitious sustainability targets in carbon abatement and resource efficiency, and be a positive influence and enabler of green efforts, while encouraging and supporting public officers to embrace sustainable practices.
GreenGov.SG will lead the way for the Singapore Green Plan 2030, a whole-of-nation movement to advance Singapore’s sustainable development. The plan charts ambitious and concrete targets over the next 10 years, strengthening Singapore’s commitments under the 2030 Agenda and Paris Agreement, while positioning the country to achieve its long-term net zero emissions aspiration as soon as viable.
Singapore has put forward its “30 by 30” goal, where the city state aims to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030. Currently, Singapore imports over 90% of its food supply, putting it at risk to changes in global agricultural landscape from importers1. While 25% of land in the world has been rendered unusable, demand for food continues to grow as population increases2.
To that end, the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) has set up a new SG Eco Office to undertake efforts to promote Singapore’s sustainability agenda, as well as launched a $50 million SG Eco Fund to support the co-creation of sustainability initiatives in Singapore. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has also hopped on the sustainability bandwagon and announced that it has set up a US$2 billion Green Investments Programme (GIP), which can support the Singapore financial centre in promoting environmentally sustainable projects and mitigating climate change risks in Singapore and the region.
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With the government paving the way for a greener city, several others in the private sector have also followed suit. One of them is UOB Group, as the bank adopts a Smart City Sustainable Finance Framework to govern its financing in key areas that support sustainable and smart city development. The framework encompasses renewable energy, green building construction, energy efficiency, green transport, waste management, sustainable water management and treatment, and climate change adaptation.
Within the UOB Group, its asset management arm, UOB Asset Management (UOBAM) is committed to Singapore’s sustainability goals and recognises that the investment community has a key role to play in supporting sustainability by channelling capital into sustainable opportunities.
To that end, UOBAM became a signatory to the United Nations-supported Principles of Responsible Investment (UN PRI) in January 2020 reaffirming its commitment to incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into investment analysis and decision-making processes.
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“Sustainability is a continuous journey and to make tangible contributions towards sustainable development, we launched our Sustainability academy which provides comprehensive training and development programmes for UOBAM employees while seeking to embed the subject as a core component of our corporate culture by building holistic comprehension of sustainability and its investment domains,” according to UOBAM Sustainability Office.
UOBAM has recently launched Singapore’s first investment grade sustainable bond fund which supports Singapore’s Green Plan 2030 and sustainable developments. UOBAM continues to develop and offer sustainable solutions to provide investors with greater opportunity to do good while investing. Furthermore, the asset manager seeks to launch more funds of different asset classes in Singapore to provide investors with a greater variety of solutions to take the sustainable path towards both profit and purpose in a manner that may suit their individual needs.
UOBAM’s United Smart Sustainable Singapore (SSS) Bond Fund is first-of-its-kind as this fund primarily invests in Singapore and seeks to support Singapore’s sustainability goals, while helping to develop a sustainable financial market. This fund goes a step further by providing investors with information on the measurable real-world impact from investing in this fund.
All these are made possible by leveraging on UOBAM’s proprietary ESG rating model and taps onto its vast regional network whose on-the-ground local investment expertise helps identify investment opportunities that support the key sustainability investment themes.
The fund’s investment universe is filtered using UOBAM’s proprietary ESG criteria with the universe including but not limited to Green, Social, Sustainability, and Sustainability-Linked (GSSS) Bonds. The fund also seeks to support specific sustainability outcomes tied to three core sustainability investment themes – (1) Climate Change, (2) Green, Clean and Smart, and (3) Sustainable Production. These three core sustainability investment themes were identified as key to sustainability development plans in Singapore, Asia and particularly so for Singapore’s Green Plan and transition to a low-carbon economy.
By applying a deep-dive bottom-up analysis, every issuer is assessed to determine and ensure they meet at least one of the three sustainability investment themes before its bonds can be considered as an investible security for the United SSS Bond Fund, says UOBAM Sustainability Office.
Overall, the United SSS Bond Fund provides investors the opportunity to do their part for Singapore’s concerted efforts to transition into a sustainable economy and society - while potentially earning stable income and healthy capital appreciation. In short, investors ‘do well by doing good’, says the UOBAM Sustainability Office.
“We are just at the beginning of this sustainability journey and sustainability goes beyond investment and will become a part of our life, intertwined with how we live, work and play. We should move beyond focusing on profit alone. Moving forward will be about creating profit and purpose, while attaining measurable impact to build a better future for all,” it adds.
1 Singapore Food Agency, September 2021.
2 United Nations, October 2019
Photo: UOBAM
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