Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG), the government agency driving enterprise growth and transformation, partnered with the Singapore Logistics Association (SLA), a trade association representing over 700 corporate members, ranging from logistics enterprises to emerging players across the wider logistics ecosystem. Together, they sought to future-proof the logistics industry by embedding sustainability as a core capability across the sector, particularly for local enterprises.

As global momentum around sustainability intensifies, Singapore’s logistics industry, which plays a key role as an enabler of global trade, faces increasing pressure to decarbonise. Despite this urgency, many local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) lack the capabilities, data, and clarity needed to initiate or scale their sustainability efforts. EnterpriseSG and SLA hence commissioned Eden Strategy Institute to undertake the nation’s first-ever logistics sustainability study to understand key sustainability topics, and develop a strategic roadmap and playbook to guide the sector in their sustainability journey.

APPROACH

Eden adopted a holistic, systems-level approach towards decarbonizing Singapore’s logistics sector. We:

• Facilitated consensus around the sector’s material sustainability topics and issues through focus group discussions, engaging a wide range of stakeholders including customers, logistics companies of various sub-sectors and technology providers
• Conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews with logistics companies and their customers to take inventory of existing efforts, capabilities, requirements, gaps, and enablers to drive future sustainability action
• Developed a quantitative sector emissions footprint model by combining ground-up data from logistics firms across warehousing and transport functions with top-down estimates for validation and completeness.
• Synthesised qualitative and quantitative information to generate insights on emerging sustainability needs and trends in the sector, as well as the sustainability performance of each company profile
• Created a sector Marginal Abatement Cost Curve for a range of Sustainable Technologies including route optimisation systems, electric vehicles, LED lights, motion sensors etc.

IMPACT

We developed a playbook that ties sustainability directly to business value, providing enterprises with a practical step-by-step guide, from building sustainability understanding, to measuring their footprint, and implementing sustainability investments. The playbook also includes the specific business case of various sustainable technologies, and documents detailed real-world case studies of good practices to inspire other enterprises in their sustainability journeys.

Our strategic roadmap outlined seven developmental themes for EnterpriseSG and SLA, including a deep dive into new operating models such as a job-pooling platform. Our policy and programmatic recommendations were prioritised according to ease of deployment, affordability, and potential impact on decarbonisation, and phased in a logical sequence to guide implementation over time.  Today, we continue to support SLA in the long-term implementation of the sector sustainability strategy.