Governance for green urbanisation: Lessons from Singapore’s green building certification scheme

Abstract

As more and more Asian countries join the global urbanisation trend, numerous negative environmental consequences loom larger than ever, rendering green urbanisation an urgent public policy agenda. This study addresses how Singapore has met this challenge and established itself as one of the world’s greenest urban centres through the implementation of the Green Mark Scheme since 2005. Drawing on the new urban governance literature, this study argues that several conditions have enabled this result. First, the government has steered the design and promotion of the Green Mark Scheme, introducing various legal and regulatory mechanisms to undergird the Green Mark Scheme regime. Second, various financial incentive schemes, risk-sharing programmes and rewards have made the government’s commitment credible, lowering entry barriers for new participants. While these policy instruments and measures echo Singapore’s top–down policy-making tradition and developmental state legacy, the government has increasingly relied on collaborative partnerships with multiple stakeholders to generate positive environmental impacts throughout buildings’ entire life cycles. These elements have created an effective mode of new green urban governance. This study illustrates how policy-makers can facilitate sustainable urbanisation by adopting green initiatives tailored to their local conditions. Moreover, this study argues that green urbanisation entails not just technical aspects but also governance elements.