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With increasing attention on the effects of climate change, decision-makers are urgently demanding climate-related information. This is reaffirmed by the introduction of mandatory climate reporting by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the prioritisation of climate-related disclosures in the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)’s highly anticipated IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards proposals, both of which are based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD Recommendations). ISSB’s proposals also incorporate industry-based disclosure requirements derived from Sustainability Accounting Standards Board.

This guide seeks to help Singapore-listed companies meet SGX’s requirements for climate reporting. In addition, given the strong signals from key stakeholder groups, even non-listed companies must consider if sufficient climate-related information is available to meet stakeholder expectations, and this guide will be useful for voluntary adoption of the TCFD Recommendations as well.

To provide practical guidance on how to adopt the TCFD Recommendations, the guide features exemplary disclosures sourced from local forerunners and global exponents that illustrate how the various recommended disclosures can be met.

Also covered in the guide are the learning experiences of advanced adopters, with practical considerations gleaned from their experiences and other observations to further smoothen the journey for new adopters.

This guide is developed with the support of SGX, ISCA’s Sustainability and Climate Change Committee (SCCC) and the SCCC Sustainability Excellence Sub-Committee, in support of the Singapore Green Plan 2030.

This guide was first published in https://isca.org.sg/standards-guidance/sustainability-and-climate-change/thought-leadership/isca-climate-disclosure-guide—taking-first-steps-towards-climate-related-disclosures

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Singapore’s carbon tax will be gradually increased from the current SG$5/tonne of carbon emissions up to SG$50-80 in 2030.

The first payments under the newly proposed tax levels will be due in 2025, based on 2024 emissions. Large facilities will be most impacted, but end-energy consumers will also feel the increase.

There are meaningful ways to reduce exposure – both for OPEX (facilities) and end-energy consumers. Facilities should look into driving energy efficiency and carbon efficiency into operations via building controls, fabric improvements, and efficient building services and installations through CAPEX.

Meanwhile, a reduction in end-energy user exposure can be countered by providing subsidies and monetary incentives.

Read the full article at https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/singapore/insights/singapore-carbon-tax-2022

Singapore has announced that it is lifting a 2019 moratorium on the construction of new data centres, however government concerns about energy efficiency and consumption mean new facilities will need to meet rigorous standards.

In the short term, the number of new data centres will be very limited, with a maximum of three approvals in a new post-mortarium pilot phase, which begins in the second quarter of this year and which will last 12-18 months. The new data centres will also have a cap on their power use: all must be between 10MW and 30MW.

Jack Harkness, director, industrial & logistics, Asia at Savills, says: “The end of the moratorium and permission for new data centres is good news, as is the focus on sustainability, however with only three approvals in this pilot phase, competition will be fierce.”

The Singapore government imposed a moratorium on construction of new data centres in 2019, due to concerns about the amount of electricity they use. At present, the city-state has 70 data centres with aggregate capacity of 1000MW; the sector uses around 7% of Singapore’s electricity.

However in January, Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said: ““While we continue to welcome data centre investments, we intend to be more selective of which DCs we can accommodate. In particular, we seek to anchor DCs that are best in class in terms of resource efficiency, which can contribute towards Singapore’s economic and strategic objectives.”  An online meeting later outlined the government’s requirements for new centres.

Data centres use electricity to power the servers running inside them and more significantly to keep them cool, as thousands of servers running constantly generates a lot of heat.

The efficiency of data centres can be measured by Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), a metric which evaluates the energy performance of a facility by calculating the ratio of the energy used as a whole to the energy used by the IT equipment alone. A perfect score would be 1. Singapore will require that new data centres have a PUE of 1.3 or lower. A typical data centre has a PUE of around 1.5-1,7, while the newest data centres in Australia and South Korea, for example, have target PUEs of 1.2-1.4.

Applicants with a track record in building and operating data centres in Singapore will be considered favourably, government officials said. In the longer term, Singapore is determined to remain a data and connectivity hub, they added.

The end of the moratorium is expected to provoke a rush of applications as data centre developers and operators compete to be one of the three approved data centres during the moratorium period. “We expect fierce competition for the limited permissions from developers and operators already present in the market,” says Harkness. “We may also see joint ventures between private equity real estate funds and operators, as we have seen in Australia and South Korea.

“The Singapore data centre market will be entering a new era, where efficiency is crucial. Over the longer term, as newer facilities with lower PUEs come onstream, we may see a flight to quality. This would create opportunities for redeveloping older data centres.”

This article was originally published in https://www.savills.com/prospects/sectors-sustainability-is-paramount-for-singapore-next-gen-data-centres.html