Business leader and society stalwart Trina Liang-Lin has just been announced as the president of the newly set-up society Women in Sustainability and Environment (WISE), which is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to ensure a strong, equal voice and representation of women in the area of sustainability in Singapore.
Its efforts will primarily be focused on UN Environment Programme’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 12, which promotes responsible consumption and production patterns.
WISE will act as a lead focal point for greater green participation, inclusiveness and visibility of women involved in the sustainability space – as consumers, investors and professionals – to bring concerted gender action to sustainability as the world urgently transitions to net-zero targets.
The launch of WISE is timed to coincide with the conclusion of COP26 (the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference) where the world’s significant environmental challenges have been highlighted. With the baton now passed to individual countries and their citizens to take concrete action, WISE is stepping up to take the lead.
To plug the gap between concern and action and support Singapore’s sustainability efforts, WISE will organise informative interactive events for members, help spotlight green brands and businesses, and mentor the next generation of sustainability leaders. It will also commission research that is centred on Singapore and Asia.
Voice of women
According to a UK Aid report, female consumers will control US$15 trillion of global consumer spending by 2028. A recent PwC report states that women influence 70 per cent of brand purchasing decisions. This includes not just household products but increasingly higher valued products such as financial investments, property and vehicles. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report states that women are shown to be effective consumption change agents for families, communities and businesses.
Speaking at the mid-November 2021 launch of WISE, Minister for Sustainability and Environment Grace Fu said, “WISE fills an important gap as a platform to aggregate the voices of women. WISE can advocate for higher sustainability standards in products and services. It can act as a bridge between consumers and producers. The WISE movement fits with the Singapore green plan nicely. Under the sustainable living pillar, we need all Singaporeans as consumers to make more sustainable choices.”
President of WISE, Trina Liang, also added, “Women’s voices must be heard and amplified as the world rapidly transitions to a new green economy. Fem-fluence or women’s consumer influence is fast re-defining global production decisions in not just traditional spaces such as household goods but also in higher value products such as ESG investing too. Women professionals in the sustainability space are also making their mark in more visible and impactful ways making core decisions and redefining key business targets for their organisations.”
Concerted effort
To build knowledge and programmes around sustainability, WISE is working with the SMU on several fronts. It signed an MOU with the Singapore Management University (SMU) for two collaborations: SMU will serve as WISE’s knowledge partner, including the curation of research content for discussion topics across various areas of sustainability, which enables more up-to-date and in-depth discussions for WISE members; and the university will also advise on the selection criteria for assessing and shortlisting the annual Women in Sustainability Awards.
The awards, which will be launched in Q2 2022, comprises of three categories: Women’s Sustainability Champion of the Year; Young Women’s Sustainability Champion of the Year; and Women’s Champion for Corporate Sustainability.
During the WISE launch event, there was a panel discussion on “Fem-Fluence and Sustainability”. The female economy represents a market more than twice the size of India and China combined. Empowered women – with access to accurate information – can help decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, increasing resource efficiency and promoting sustainable lifestyles, thus playing a key role as the world transitions to a net-zero economy.
The participants were Jaclyn Seow, head of ESG and Impact at Openspace Ventures; Nichol Ng, co-founder and CEO of FoodXervices; Eu-Lin Fang, sustainability and climate change practice leader at PwC; and Gwyneth Fries, expert senior manager, sustainability of Bain & Company. It was moderated by Debra Soon, group head, marketing and communications, of Aviva SingLife.
(Main and featured image of Trina Liang-Lin: Prestige Singapore; all other images courtesy of WISE)