In this edition of the Views from the Top column, the topic was on how green are the organisation’s business practices and what can be done to make Singapore a ‘car-lite’ and zero-waste nation. Here are some suggestions from Achieve Group CEO Joshua Yim as quoted in The Business Times:

“Being in the professional services industry, our green efforts extend to finding ways to minimise office waste. These include recycling of paper and printing documents only when absolutely necessary. We will also implement a new system that will digitise more of our day-to-day work activities. This will help eliminate the need to print resumes for the purpose of interviewing job candidates, for instance, as we are a recruitment agency. Singapore should look into enhancing the adoption of electric cars. While electric cars enjoy lower registration taxes and tax breaks on low emissions, these discounts are not significant enough to sway motorists. The government should provide greater tax rebates and other incentives to reduce the costs to buyers, as electric and hybrid cars tend to be pricier than average. Singapore should also look into building more charging stations for greater convenience. If we are able to implement this successfully, Singapore, being a small country with limited landmass, could become a “model city” for others to follow. The authorities could also explore providing subsidies or rebates for energy-saving appliances and equipment. This would incentivise businesses to import or invent energy-saving products. Waiving GST for such items would be good.”

Source : The Business Times, 17 November 2014