For this week’s Sustainable Development Goal, we will be looking at SDG 11: Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.
Around half of humanity currently lives in cities, although cities only occupy a mere 3% of Earth’s land – that’s essentially 3.5 billion people squeezed into an area the size of Russia! With a rising population trend, coupled with rapid rural-urban migration, we expect to see the urban populations rise. This means that ensuring future cities have the capability and capacity to house the major population sustainably is essential, especially when natural resources are so scarce and carbon emissions from the small concentrations of cities are today already so exorbitant (60-80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions).
Targeting the main contributor to the problem is indeed the most efficient way. If existing metropolises and new urbanised regions plan to develop with sustainability in mind, it would make mitigating future environmental issues such as climate change and resource deficiency a great deal easier. However, this can be extremely challenging, especially when trying to transition the urban economy without seeing a decline. SDG 11 thus provides 10 targets to help guide cities to transition into sustainable ones.
SDG 11’s Ten Targets and how Singapore plans to achieve them
The 10 targets can be further separated into 2 categories:
- “outcome” targets
- “means of achieving” targets
They collectively address a myriad of global challenges we currently face, such as lack of affordable housing in impoverished countries, inequality in social and environmental aspects, as well as climate change.
Although the SDGs are not mandated by any international law, governments are expected to take ownership and curate their own frameworks to work towards the goals. Singapore’s response to SDG 11 can be seen in the recently published Singapore Green Plan 2030.
Singapore Green Plan 2030
The Green Plan is a movement involving the whole nation (community, government, and industry) to advance our national agenda on sustainable development. It essentially sets ambitious but concrete and achievable targets to be achieved at the end of 2030 and reinforces Singapore’s commitment towards the SDGs as well as the Paris Agreement.
1. City in Nature
The first key programme of the Green Plan caters to target 11.7: Provide access to safe and inclusive green and public spaces. It aims to increase the number of public green spaces through setting aside 50% more land for nature parks and ensuring that households live within a 10 minutes’ walk to a park. Closing the proximity of public green spaces to residents makes them more accessible to our ageing population.
Not only do public green spaces provide social as well as economic benefits, they are also important ecosystem service providers. Have you noticed that housing areas next to neighbourhood parks tend to feel cooler? Well, this is a prime example of an ecosystem service provided by green spaces, where the greenery shades the concrete from direct sunlight, and release water vapour via evapotranspiration to cool the surrounding air from the Urban Heat Island Effect.
2. Energy Reset
In line with being a tech-savvy ‘smart’ nation, we can expect electricity usage to skyrocket with more frequent usage of digital facilities. With our current energy mix almost entirely carbon-intensive (99% fossil fuels (natural gas) and 1% renewables AND coal), further digitalisation would contribute to a rising carbon emission. Thus, shifting our energy sources to be cleaner and tap on sustainable low carbon sources of energy such as renewables is necessary to avoid this. Singapore has plans to expand our solar energy sector, first evident from the installation of possibly the world’s largest floating solar farm off the west coast at Tengah Reservoir. This is an innovative solution against our lack of natural resources and land space.
Other means of changing the nation’s energy consumption patterns includes plans to ensure 80% of all buildings have the latest energy-efficient fixtures and technology, as well as supporting the proliferation of electric vehicles. Learn more about this under our SDG7 Affordable and Clean Energy lessons.
This programme adheres to the target of 11.B as well as 11.6.
3. Green Economy
To help ease the transition into a greener economy, Singapore has established an Enterprise Sustainability Programme to aid enterprises, both big and small, to embrace sustainability in their business models. This, along with the introduction of carbon taxes*, are methods in which the Green Plan uses to address target 11.B: implement policies for inclusion, resource efficiency and disaster risk reduction.
* In Singapore’s 2021 Budget speech, it was proposed that the carbon tax will be increased progressively from the current $5 per tonne to $45 in 2026; with a view to reach S$50 to S$80 per tonne by 2030.
4. Resilient Future
On our sunny island, we’re used to perspiring profusely from just walking to a nearby coffee shop to get lunch. However, we should not underestimate our hot and humid temperatures as, if the trend of global warming continues, the currently already uncomfortable temperatures can become dangerous, especially to our heat-vulnerable demographics of elderly and children. As such, following target 11.5: reducing the adverse effects of natural disasters, novel technology of cool paints on building facades, as well as building designs that do not impede natural wind flow can keep us cool.
5. Sustainable Living
Addressing multiple targets of SDG 11, Sustainable Living aims for a circular economy by closing loops in our water system with NEWater, waste into NEWSand, supporting public and active transport by expanding the MRT lines, and extending cycling networks from the current 460km to a double of 1320km. The final programme under the Green Plan can sound generic at first glance, and it is; but with a good reason. Sustainable living can only be obtained if we are conscious of all functions of our daily lives. We might think that such actions can seem awfully insignificant, but if all 5,916,575 of us in Singapore chooses to be environmentally conscious, that would undoubtedly make a notable change within the city.
The Future of Sustainable Cities
The road to a sustainable city will not be an easy one, given the difficulty in balancing capitalistic economic growth that plunders Earth’s resources and true sustainability that strives to conserve these resources. However, looking at the workings of the Green Plan, we see that Singapore is motivated to strengthen and scale existing policies and actions. With the cooperation of businesses to construct a sustainable city, and our combined support to build a sustainable community, Singapore can achieve SDG11.