Building hygiene also landlords’ responsibility, says Balakrishnan
SINGAPORE — Landlords have to pull their weight in managing all aspects of their buildings instead of merely collecting rent, said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday.
This includes taking charge of food storage and disposal, added the minister, as he singled out improper food disposal as the reason behind the recent case of rat infestation at Marina Square mall.
In his first comments on the rodent situation plaguing the mall, Dr Balakrishnan outlined the role that landlords played in maintaining their buildings, adding that mall-wide enforcement action on lapses may be imposed, if need be.
Speaking at the fourth of six pre-Committee of Supply consultation sessions on environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) yesterday, he said: “The reason why we’re having rats is because our management of food disposal has got problems. It’s not enough to just go and ‘tekan’ (target) the individual stallholder or the individual shop.”
“It is the overall system — where is it stored, where is food waste kept, how is it secured, how does the food waste reach the bin centre, is the bin centre secure, is there proper attempt at disposal or recycling? And these sort of issues have to be handled by the landlord,” Dr Balakrishnan added.
Real estate developer City Developments, which counts Palais Renaissance and City Square Mall under its properties, makes it a practice to take responsibility for their buildings’ eco-system, said chief sustainability officer Esther An. But such acts are either hits or misses, she said.
A recent move to engage an external vendor to buy used cooking oil from tenants and repurpose it as an energy source flopped, after competitors muscled in and offered better prices for the used cooking oil.
“As landlords, we can’t force the food stall owner to sell to the company that uses it for energy. They are very cost-sensitive,” Ms An said at yesterday’s session.
A total of 36 representatives from small and large enterprises attended the session. They raised issues such as offering education and incentives, and having legislation to promote environmental CSR.
Ms An suggested that consumers be given incentives to pick green products, noting that greater demand for eco-friendly goods would drive up supply.
Dr Balakrishnan replied that business owners also have a role to play, although they would have to take on an urgent long-term view, despite higher costs currently.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need help in going green, said participants.
Ms Janice Kwok, senior director of the Singapore Manufacturing Federation, felt that multinational corporations (MNCs) could step in to provide guidance.
“Sometimes, it’s not that they don’t want to do it but because they’re unaware (of) which area they can look into (to) save costs, save the environment,” she said.
Acknowledging this, Dr Balakrishnan said: “We do need to focus on the SMEs ... actually the technology and the techniques are available but it’s about education, it’s about making it accessible so that SMEs can choose to exploit it if they want to and if it makes business sense.”
SMEs and MNCs can also have more partnerships, suggested Mr Jagadish CV, chief executive officer of semi-conductor company SSMC. His company currently engages a company in Japan to remove fluoride from its water purification pallets. However, he hopes to partner with local SMEs to do the job.
Agreeing, Dr Balakrishnan said: “We need to look at the whole economics at which resources flow, and optimise it. There may be opportunities for SMEs to go into these fields and serve the MNCs and everybody wins — the environment wins, you create jobs, you create profits, you create savings.”
