Congratulations Team Singapore!
The article entitled “Singapore to give cleaners day off to alert residents to city’s waste problem” appearing in the online Eco Business publication on Monday, 18 November 2019 caught our eye.
The story is that Singaporean residents will give the 58,000 city cleaners the day off in April 2020 so that the community can take an active part in cleaning up the City State of Singapore. It is estimated that the city generates 21,000 tonnes of rubbish every day.
The Government recognise that a change of mindset is needed in how Singaporean’s think about their waste.
“Getting Singaporeans to clean up after themselves is an attempt to inculcate social habits that can be commensurate with Singapore’s economic success,” an explainer on Public Hygiene Council’s (PHC) website reads. “Citizens must take personal responsibility for public hygiene in a socially advanced nation.”
PHC warned “the presence of a large number of these cleaners will inure Singaporeans to their dependence on cleaners,” so greater public awareness was needed to remind people of their individual responsibility to keep the city clean.
This is exactly what we need to do around the world. “All communities, everywhere!”
Almost without argument traditional models of environmental activism have failed to achieve large scale change. The cause of the failure is not as important as the failure itself, only to learn we are failing and need a new approach to solve a worsening problem.
Traditional models of environmental activism are the antithesis of big business. Big business has been seen as an analogy to greedy consumption at any price. The environment4change team believe it is now time for a change. Enough is now known about our planet, its species and inexcusable damaged caused by mankind to charter a new and collaborative approach to repair and healing. Business is not the enemy but our partner to save the planet. There must be a place for all stakeholders in managing and then correcting the damage done to the only ‘Mother Earth’ we share. The answer is inclusion, but in favour of a net improvement to our global habitats and ecosystems around the globe. What Barack Obama said of Climate Change applies equally to the Environment.
“We are the first generation to feel the effects of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.” Barack Obama, Twitter 23 Sept 2014.
environment4change want to inspire local communities into action to clean up their environments. A big part of that clean-up will be removing pollution from air, land and water. Through the environment4change Platform as a Service (PaaS) we will encourage all environmental entrepreneurship and the other best in global science and research will be tested, evaluated and shared with the World. We can see our members using of our PaaS platform to set up clean-up projects with the help of their local community. We imagine post PaaS launch and within a short period of time 100,000 or even 1,000,000 concurrent community-based clean-up projects on our digital platform is possible. This is Singapore, 100,000 times over, everyday! THAT IS AMAZING and will make a huge difference to the planet we all live on for the benefit of our Children and their children.
The environment4change Platform will be open to support and collaborate with all other Environmental Agencies, Charities, Governments and non-Government Organisations in their endeavours to save the planet. All 3rd party organisations who access the platform will have the benefit of the global footprint of a number of digital services ensuring their audience grows from local to global. The goal is to democratize and scale environmentalism, so that together, we can clean up Planet Earth.
