Waste Print: Let's talk trash - WASTE AUDITING AND MANAGEMENT IN SINGAPORE seacape.org.nz - SOUTHEAST ASIA CAPE
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Waste Print: Let’s talk trash
WASTE AUDITING AND
MANAGEMENT IN SINGAPORE
seacape.org.nz
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Waste auditing and
management in Singapore
E-Commerce is a fast-growing mar- performance and gives the business
ket in Southeast Asia and the region data on its environmental impact.
has been identified as an important
area for tech and e-commerce com- Waste Print also aims to build a com-
panies looking to penetrate wider munity on the platform to educate
markets. users around environmental perfor-
mance management and promote
New Zealand companies, however, business transparency. For example,
would find it difficult to compete with a Waste Print audit may reveal that
global e-commerce titans such as a company could install more ener-
Amazon, Alibaba (including Taobao gy efficient machines in its factory,
and Tencent, and the Lazada group in which would save it money in long
Southeast Asia). Equally, confronting term energy costs while reducing its
e-commerce directly in Southeast environmental impact. This recom-
Asia would be challenging for New mendation and performance would
Zealand due to a lack of resources be fed through to the app where the
and size. As such, Kiwi entrepreneurs business could use the data to im-
need to take advantage of their rel- prove and forecast its performance
ative flexibility when compared to (both environmentally and financial-
larger and slower conglomerates. ly). Waste Print would also operate a
certification system, where users can
This report identifies waste manage- earn Bronze, Silver and Gold Waste
ment in Singapore as still largely un- Print certifications to signal their
developed, with most businesses in waste and environmental perfor-
the early stages of creating waste mance to stakeholders.
management strategies. It puts for-
ward a waste auditing/advisory ser- Singapore’s large e-commerce market
vice called Waste Print. Waste Print is has been growing steadily and is pro-
an environmental management plat- jected to continue doing so. Therefore,
form app paired with an audit and the market presents a stable entry op-
advisory service. Waste Print rec- portunity for a product or service such
ommends ways of improving a busi- as Waste Print and its community app,
ness’s environmental and financial which fit the right niche.INTRODUCTION This makes Singapore a viable market for an
environmental sustainability service and an
online community, such Waste Print, which is
Background
proposed in this report.
Waste: a global problem with
e-Commerce potential in
local solutions
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asian nations, along with the rest of
E-Commerce is a fast-growing ASEAN mar- the world, are grappling with the waste crisis.
ket, worth USD $23bn in 2018 and projected Four SEA countries – Indonesia, Philippines,
to reach USD $102bn by 20251. Global titans Vietnam and Thailand – account for up to 35%
including Amazon, Alibaba (including Taobao) of the plastic waste leaking into the ocean.
and Tencent dominate traditional e-commerce This is a huge problem requiring innovative
markets worldwide through the power of ex- ‘out-of-the-box’ and local solutions.
isting platforms. An ‘east vs west’ divide now
exists, across which China (through Alibaba As the waste issue grows, business opportuni-
and Tencent) and the United States (through ties with huge potential emerge in waste man-
Amazon) are competing for global dominance. agement. However, most waste management
Alibaba operates Lazada group, which is the businesses are yet to enter Southeast Asian
number one e-commerce platform in South- markets because of a lack of support from
east Asia (present in Indonesia, Malaysia, the governments and a lack of money and educa-
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam). tion around the issue. Funds for waste man-
agement are also vulnerable to corruption,
New Zealand companies would find it diffi- and many local governments lack the political
cult to confront these titans directly due to a will to implement waste management, as it is
lack of resources and size. As such, New Zea- not regarded as an immediate priority.
land entrepreneurs need to take advantage
of their relative flexibility compared to larger Poverty is a huge barrier to effective waste
and slower conglomerates. To succeed in SEA, management in developing SEA countries.
New Zealand companies will need to offer in- People in lower socio-economic groups need to
novative and/or specific products while grow- spend their income on priorities such as health
ing the markets for these. and housing. Also, the people most affected by
vast waste dumps are low in SEA social hierar-
e-Commerce and consumers in chies and are less likely to make use of waste
auditing or other waste management services.
Singapore
Singapore’s e-commerce market has been Waste management progress in
growing steadily and is projected to continue Singapore
at a similar rate. As such, the market presents
a stable entry opportunity for a product or Singapore holds the undisputed crown as
service fitting the right niche. Asia’s Greenest City due to its ambitious envi-
ronmental targets and its efficient and innova-
Of the ASEAN nations, Singapore has the high- tive approach to achieving them. For example,
est Internet penetration, at 83.6%2. Singa- one major target is to have 80% of Singapore
pore also has the highest GDP per capita of achieve a Green Mark environmental perfor-
all ASEAN regions at USD $57,714 compared mance rating by 2030, in order to reduce en-
to USD $2,342 in Vietnam and USD $6,595 in ergy use and carbon emissions4. Compared
Thailand3. Singapore households have high to Vietnam and Thailand, Singapore has dealt
disposable income and therefore have the better with urban challenges and in the pro-
capacity to care about environmental issues cess, has become a living laboratory for pio-
without affecting quality of life. neers of smart and sustainable solutions.However, Singapore’s waste management still Developing Southeast Asian nations face signif-
has some way to go. Most businesses are still icant environmental challenges due to rapid ur-
in the early stages of creating waste man- banisation, population growth and their inabili-
agement strategies. Last year, a third of the ty to effectively tackle environmental risks. This
1.67 million tons of domestic waste disposed is due to a plethora of structural issues such as
in Singapore consisted of packaging5 waste, inefficient governance around environmental
primarily plastic bags and food packaging. management, the prevalence of corruption and
This amount is enough to fill more than 1,000 a chronic shortage of investment.
Olympic-size swimming pools, according to a
Channel News Asia report. Just like Thailand Notwithstanding the bigger issues around
and Vietnam, foods and beverages are of- waste management and without putting all the
ten packed directly into plastic bags for easy blame onto businesses and individuals for the
transportation. It is unlikely these habits can scale of waste production, waste print puts
change overnight, so waste production will forward a business idea that could foster a
continue to increase. sense of responsibility among Singaporeans
for their environmental impact.
Waste management legislation At the same time, our approach could help
in Singapore businesses do better financially while lever-
aging the power of e-commerce and a tech-
More environmental management legisla- nological platform to achieve scale in waste
tion is on the way in Singapore. Targets have management and gather better quality data.
been set for new solutions that will support
urban lifestyles: More people will be based in Auditing: a first, challenging,
Smart Work Centres, featuring shared work-
spaces for employees from different compa- dirty step towards
nies, which would be near their homes, thus sustainability
reducing the need to travel, improving pro-
ductivity, and enhancing people’s work-life Initially, businesses seeking sustainability by
balance. reducing their waste will often not know what
to improve or how to do it. They may also lack
a full understanding of the issues.
The business problem A first step would be to conduct a waste audit,
which is a survey of the regular waste stream
and opportunity from a facility or business. An audit can reveal
much about how a business and its premis-
es operate, which can then be the basis for
Waste management: Southeast improvement. It can be a game changer for
a business and may reveal costly, wasteful
Asian challenges problems or unravel opportunities that could
generate new revenue streams.
Environmental management requires financial
resources. Establishing modern infrastructure Auditors go through bags of waste, sort items,
requires substantial technological know-how, recording and analysing the emerging data.
large investments in industrial equipment and In doing this, auditors identify what is being
environmental regulation measures. thrown away, what is being recycled or divert-
ed through other means, and the amounts of
One common trend in developing Southeast each type of waste by weight or volume.
Asian markets is the insufficient funding avail-
able to support a sophisticated waste man- However, DIY waste auditing involves getting
agement system and to develop the educa- one’s hands dirty (literally). Most businesses
tional interventions to support it. find it time consuming, so they do not bother.Business proposal Why choose Singapore to start
Waste Print?
A waste management solution Singapore has the infrastructure and wealth
needed for Waste Print to succeed. As Singa-
for Singapore porean residents and local businesses become
better equipped to deal with (and spend on)
On the basis of previously outlined challeng- environmental management, Waste Print will
es, the Waste Print solution would combine a more easily persuade Singaporean business-
waste auditing service in the Singapore mar- es to sign up to its services. Singapore has
ket with an app-based (online) support com- been dubbed a ‘start-up haven’ with a grow-
munity, which would allow users to monitor ing e-commerce sector and a robust trade and
their progress towards sustainability at a the finance ecosystem encouraging sustainable
touch of a finger. growth. Additionally, waste audits could help
Singapore businesses create benchmarks to
In the long term, Waste Print seeks to create set targets and gauge progress towards sus-
financially viable and economically stimulating tainability. With new legislation on the way,
ways for businesses in developing countries to Singaporean businesses will need data from
be able to manage their waste. waste audits to complete their reporting for
regulatory compliance. Waste Print could as-
The company would help Singaporean busi- sist companies to comply with certification
nesses determine how sustainable their op- and compliance standards.
erations are. The auditing service would tell
business operators which waste and recycling
How will Waste Print
management practices are working, and which
are not. This will enable businesses to make
work?
necessary adjustments to maximise their op-
erational efficiency.
The waste auditing service could help busi-
Auditing and reporting services
nesses save money. An audit could unlock ne-
glected revenue streams and help business-
es make potential savings. By reducing what Part of Waste Print’s offer will be to provide
goes to their rubbish bins, businesses could business-to-business waste auditing services,
reduce their waste hauling fees, for example, which can show companies how much waste
and recyclables might even have value on the they produce, and ways to lessen or eliminate
market. it. Waste Print’s auditing and reporting ser-
vices will be undertaken in three steps.
This service could help businesses to reach
their sustainability goals by changing how Step 1: Providing a quote
businesses approach waste. The ‘out of sight,
out of mind’ attitude to recycling and waste Since businesses vary in their size and activ-
management is no longer viable. In the long ity, and hence produce varying amounts and
run, Waste Print’s service and the communi- types of waste, Waste Print will need to under-
ty that could grow around using the service take a preliminary step of ‘understanding the
would help shift people’s mind-sets by show- business’ with each client, before proceeding
casing conscientious businesses that are tak- to a full waste audit. This step will determine
ing action to reduce their environmental foot- the size of the waste audit, the number of site
prints. It could thus inspire more consumers visits required and how long it will take. This
to support brands that exhibit a concerted ef- would be an important step for attracting cli-
fort to reducing waste. ents to come back for future audits.Step 2: Making a site visit line. This would motivate businesses to keep
moving towards more environmentally sus-
A site visit to gather in-depth knowledge tainable practices. Auditors would field clients’
about a company’s operations would be the questions during a face-to-face explanation of
core part of the audit. To establish the scale the report. This personal approach would en-
of waste being generated and how to make courage businesses to work with Waste Print
changes, Waste Print’s qualified waste au- on finding waste management solutions.
ditors will closely examine a client’s produc-
tion processes and daily operations. Auditors
would analyse, for example, electronic equip- Waste Print’s three-tier
ment usage, packaging used, how much waste certification
remains after a product is manufactured, and
vehicle types used and routes taken. Once businesses have been audited, they
would set about improving their practice with
The audit process will be carried out against a chance to achieve one of Waste Print’s three
the ISO 14000 and 14001 environmental certifications: bronze, silver or gold. These
management accounting standards, which would be awarded to businesses for where
require organisations to have environmen- they sit on a sustainability spectrum, rather
tal management systems in place in order to than for simply hiring Waste Print’s services.
measure their environmental impact. Waste Once earned, businesses could use their certi-
Print would have to be accredited and meet fications in promotional material, thus attract-
the relevant ISO Committee on Conformity ing environmentally conscious individuals to
Assessment (CASCO) standard. Additionally, their goods or services.
Waste Print will audit against its own score-
card, which includes non-financial waste im- Offering a three-tier certification system
provement metrics, including: would encourage businesses to keep striving
towards the highest certification, ie gold. Of-
• nature of raw materials used (including fering only one certification could allow busi-
their recyclability) nesses to give up trying to improve. Gold cer-
• raw materials wastage tification could also offer businesses access to
benefits within the Waste Print online commu-
• release of air contaminants nity, which is covered later in this report.
• use of recycled components and materials Waste Print certification would be done on a
where possible subscription basis. An awarded certification
would only last a maximum of two years before
• environmental impact of supply chain as a
businesses would need to undergo further au-
whole
dits. This would avoid decreasing their waste
• where the waste ultimately ends up. simply for an audit and later resuming waste-
ful behaviours. In addition, periodic checking
As technology develops, the auditing process would allow businesses move up the three-
can be improved and refined. For example, tiered certification scheme every couple of
once eco-friendly blockchain technology is years until Gold Certification is reached.
available, it could be integrated into the Waste
Print platform to allow supply chain transpar-
ency, assisting Waste Print to gather accurate
Compliance
data faster on raw material origins. Initially, legal sustainability compliance will
Step 3: Providing a report draw users to Waste Print. Singapore Ex-
change (SGX) has introduced sustainability
Waste Print will provide a report to its clients reporting on a ‘comply or explain basis’. Listed
showing where their waste comes from, and companies must prepare annual sustainability
offer solutions. Importantly, a business could reports, describing their sustainability prac-
also be shown how waste affects its bottom tices or explaining why they haven not de-scribed these, and what they are doing instead lished online communities (Facebook, Insta-
(or reasons for not doing so). gram, LinkedIn) could help.
Waste Print could help businesses gather com-
pliance information and could possibly work Future opportunities for a
with the ISCA Corporate Reporting Committee Waste Print online community
in future to shape the development of environ-
mental and sustainability reporting. The idea Opportunities for the Waste Print app could in-
would be to move away from a mere ‘comply clude collaborating with social media platforms
and explain’ approach to setting compulso- such as Facebook to add a social sharing but-
ry environmental accounting requirements. ton that would enable individuals to share their
Waste Print would also aim to build relation- ideas about how Waste Print benefits their daily
ships with the Singapore government through lives. This could attract more members to the
bodies such as Sustainable Singapore in order community.
to reduce waste at a higher level.
Market potential
The Waste Print community Waste Print will operate in a market that is cur-
platform rently small by providing its service through
an e-commerce platform. It has the potential
What is the ‘community platform’ and why is to become a service that is valued and sup-
it needed? ported by the Singaporean government. A pi-
The Waste Print community platform would be lot would be run in Singapore, with potential
designed to recognise the importance of both to expand to other ASEAN countries over a
community and education to people in South- longer period of time:
east Asia. • Begin operations and platform development
Since e-commerce is growing in Southeast Asia, • 1st to 2nd years: launch audit/advisory
developing the community through an app will service and Waste Print community app
ensure that education and information will be
accessible to individuals who are passionate • 3rd to 4th years: Develop rewards for pre-
about sharing and finding ideas about reducing mium app users, gain critical mass
waste. Examples of how it would work are: • 5th year onwards: use data collections to
analyse future waste trends.
• The app would offer a forum for sharing ideas
• Users will be able to mark favourite posts
and give feedback to contributors.
Business plan
• Users will start encouraging each other to
change their consumer habits.
• Businesses can use the app to explain Waste Print: unique selling
their waste management stories. Once
they have achieved gold certification, their points (USPs)
businesses would be promoted via the
Waste Print will audit and make recommen-
app, which would attract more customers
dations to businesses to save money by re-
from the Waste Print app community.
ducing environmental costs while minimising
It takes time to establish a critical mass of their environmental impact. Customers of its
members that will make the app attractive to clients benefit from increased transparency
the market. Membership has to be big enough when buying services or goods, using the app.
to generate authentic interaction between Waste Print will have a unique and accessible
people using the app. Worthwhile content mobile app and website that will display busi-
must be generated to encourage members to ness’ data and progress, making waste man-
continue engaging with it. Linking into estab- agement as easy as ever.Start-up funding twelve months for upgrading the platform
and launching to market.
The platform would require SGD $402,000
capital investment alongside the cost of hu- • Ordinary on-going ‘software as a service’
man capital, making start-up investment (SaaS) development costs are to be ex-
in Waste Print sizeable. This could possibly pected.
come from a partnership with an existing New
In addition, the platform will require audit
Zealand business, such as XERO, where the
staff, based on the following assumptions
Waste Print platform and auditing service
(note that, unlike the platform, staff will be
could be an add-on to the company’s core
hired on an ‘as needed’ basis):
business.
• SGD $70,000 salary per auditor to run
Market research twelve audits per year
The current market in Singapore does not of- • Contractors will address initial additional
fer any waste auditing services. However, Zero demand for audits; preferably, in-house
Waste SG has been established as a non-prof- expertise will grow.
it, non-governmental organisation striving to Overall, the business would become profit-
eliminate waste. Zero Waste SG has similar able in its third year. The business is predicted
goals and ideas about how to reduce waste in to post a loss of SGD $96,000 in its second
Singapore but does not offer the businesses year, bringing total initial investment to SGD
an auditing service and online community in $402,000 before achieving a return of SGD
the way that Waste Print would. $1,170,804 between 2021 and 2024.
A partnership with Zero Waste SG would be
beneficial as they could leverage their space Operating costs
and create content on our community, which
The budget factors in travel costs for both
will help grow the Waste Print auditing service
sales and marketing and for travelling to cli-
and the community platform.
ent sites, office rents and the cost of sales and
marketing.
Research and development
Many auditors will spend most of their time off
A development team would be contracted to site, which has been factored into rent costs.
establish the website. A beta-testing period Sales and marketing costs would be approx-
will ensure the website runs smoothly and easy imately 5% of total costs in most years and
user access is maintained. Part of the develop- this will cover client relationship management
ment team will create the app, which would be and B2B advertising at corporate events. It
made available to both Android and Apple us- will also cover some B2C advertising on social
ers. Once released, the app development group media to drive consumers to the community
would undertake constant maintenance and section of the platform.
updating of the app to minimise bugs and im-
prove user experience. s. Market entry
Prior to launching Waste Print in the Singapore
Initial investment market, relationships with a minimum number
The bare platform is expected to take SGD of local businesses would need to be devel-
$240,000 to develop initially. A full working oped – and maintained – in order to present
prototype could be completed in nine months, the benefits of the Waste Print auditing service
based on these assumptions: and the community. Relationships could be
further fostered by advertising to Singapore’s
• Three full-time developers for twelve general public through social media platforms
months; salary SGD $80,000, pro-rata. such as Facebook.
• SGD $320,000 investment over the next Waste Print’s auditing and advisory servicewould initially target Singapore’s small-to- factors into account, which would ensure that
medium-sized businesses and smaller firms waste audits are economically viable for busi-
listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. nesses to undertake. This would give busi-
nesses enough time between audits to imple-
Its community platform would also target ment what they have learned.
young professionals and young adults between
18 and 30 years old as this group is becoming We anticipate that Waste Print will grow its
more aware of how the packaging around prod- consumer base by 32% compound annual
ucts they use affects the environment. growth rate (CAGR) per year after acquiring
150 users in the second year. This growth rate
Revenue generation is high but we believe the demand for Waste
Print’s services will be strong because of the
In this business model, the waste auditing ser- governance aspect of the product.
vice provides the main stream of revenue for
Waste Print. Initially, we expect that the waste
audits will bring Waste Print to the attention of
the Singaporean public, which will attract cus-
tomers to Waste Print’s other services such as
the online community platform.
Waste Print will generate revenue through two
streams. First, there will be a SaaS subscrip-
tion fee of SGD $15 per month per account
for businesses to use the reporting and man-
agement functions of the app. However, there
will be no cost to consumers (or businesses)
to use the Waste Print community for discus-
sion. Secondly there will be the costs of the
regular audit. Audits will cost between $1,500
and $50,000+ depending on the size and na-
ture of the business (on average, SGD $8000).
On a pure numerical analysis, the technical
platform may seem unprofitable. However, the
intellectual property in the platform allows
Waste Print to charge a premium for its audits
while fending off competitors. As such, though
it may strictly run at a loss, it plays a key role
in the businesses’ overall profitability.
Companies would be expected to request a
waste audit every one to two years, depending
upon such factors as:
• their size
• how long the previous audit took
• the cost
• how long recommended improvements
would take to implement.
A suggested time for a follow-up audit would
be included in the initial report arising from
the ‘understanding the business’ stage in the
auditing process. It would take all of theseconclusion
Waste Print wants to make a signifi- to easily identify sustainability goods
cant impact on waste management in and services promoted on the Waste
the Singapore market. Print platform. The auditing and re-
porting process will educate busi-
The auditing services will empower nesses on the negative impacts their
businesses to be more in control of waste has on the environment, but
the waste they generate and to un- also about how to decrease waste in
derstand its effects and learn how their production processes.
to lessen these. The certification
process will motivate businesses to The ultimate aim of waste auditing
reach beyond a threshold of sus- is to decrease wastage produced by
tainability, and continue to minimise Singaporean businesses, which will
their wastage as they move through help protect and preserve both Sin-
to achieve bronze, then silver and gapore’s natural environment and
finally gold certification. The certifi- the wider global natural environment.
cation process will allow consumers
1
Statista. “E-commerce market value in Southeast Asia 4
BCA. “Green Building Masterplan” 2009. Retrieved from:
2015-2025” Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statis- https://www.bca.gov.sg/greenmark/others/3rd_green_build-
tics/958414/southeast-asia-e-commerce-market-value/ ing_masterplan.pdf
2
Statista. “Internet penetration in Asia as of June 2017, by coun- 5
Channel News Asia. “NEA to study disposable packaging’s
try” .Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/281668/ environmental impact” Retrieved from: https://www.chan-
internet-penetration-in-southeast-asian-countries/ nelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-to-study-dispos-
able-packaging-s-environmental-impact-7891974
3
The World Bank.”GDP per capita (current US$)”. Retrieved
from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CDSoutheast Asia Centre of
Asia-Pacific Excellence
The Southeast Asia Centre of What we do
Asia-Pacific Excellence (SEA CAPE)
was established by the New Zealand The Southeast Asia CAPE has four
government to enhance our engage- key objectives:
ment with the ten ASEAN member
countries and Timor-Leste. • To equip New Zealanders to en-
gage and do business with the
SEA CAPE is hosted by Victoria Uni- ASEAN countries and Timor Leste.
versity of Wellington as part of a con-
sortium of New Zealand universities • To broaden and deepen New Zea-
that also includes the University of landers’ understanding of South-
Auckland, the University of Waikato, east Asian cultures, societies, lan-
and the University of Otago. guages, politics and economies.
We work together with exporters, • To excel nationally and interna-
young New Zealanders, government tionally in the dissemination of
agencies and others to improve un- knowledge and skills relating to
derstanding of these countries and Southeast Asia.
build knowledge of their economies,
languages, cultures and business • To enhance New Zealand’s eco-
protocols. nomic, trade, political and cultural
relationships within the region.
Through our Market Readiness and
Market Insights Programmes, and
mobility initiatives such as the Tertia- Acknowledgement
ry Market Immersion Programme and
BizVenture, we show New Zealanders SEA CAPE would like to acknowledge
why and how to deepen our under- the contributions of Alexis Allen, Zoë
standing of these valuable economies. Hunt, Laurie Ingle and Nina Santos
to this report following their partic-
ipation in the January 2019 Tertia-
ry Market Immersion Programme to
Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.Connect with us @CAPESEAsia linkedin.com/company/seacape seacape@vuw.ac.nz seacape.org.nz
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