Learnings from Graduate Projects@Singapore

We submitted our final report at the end of last week, so the project is officially done. It was a really amazing experience and it has been an adjustment moving from being together as a team 24/7 to returning to our separate lives.

Team at Marina Bay

The formal deliverable of our project was a 70-page (inclusive of bibliography) report outlining environmental CSR in Singaporean hotels. However, the outcome of this project extends far beyond just the deliverable. During our MBA, one of our professors, Michael Parent, always closed off with a request for key learnings from each class session or ‘nuggets.’ As such, here are some of our nuggets from our experience:

• When doing a project abroad with a self-selected team, think carefully about team dynamics in terms of strengths and personalities, working and living with the same group of people for a month requires immense group 'love.' If you create an effective team you will have a lot of fun, have a great deliverable and come back with amazing stories (like us!)
• When working in a group that you trust make sure to question anything that doesn't seem totally correct, there is a good chance that the level of trust developed between members is so high that unless things are verified they can be missed under the assumption that someone else is dealing with them
• Allocate about twice as much time as you need for any task, you may encounter difficulties that you wouldn't at home such as lack of internet or printing facilities
• When working abroad you will meet many amazing people, Canadians in particular tend to have tight-knit expatriate communities. Try to connect wherever possible through university alumni associations, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and other organizations. (and bring LOTS of business cards)
• Double and triple check logistics such as accommodations, flights and transportation before you leave, being totally clear on this will make the time on the ground much less stressful
• Food can be a challenge, you will likely find there is at least one item from home that you really miss (for us it was raw vegetables)
• It is useful to know your country's history and culture fairly well, you are likely to be asked questions that you wouldn't have even through about or may not know the answers to offhand (ie. Traditional foods, official languages, size, year of confederation, governance structure and constitutional monarchy)
• Know culturally appropriate formalities (eg. Aunty, Uncle for older individuals that help you with day-to-day tasks)
• There are significant differences in gift giving between cultures, be very aware and sensitive to this
• Lastly, have fun, and take time to see some of the sights

A huge thank you to all of our supporters throughout this project:

Official Project Supporters

Contact Singapore

Patty Woo, Assistant Director

Lenny Azuree, Executive Officer

Simon Fraser University Beedie Graduate School of Business

Stephanie Bertels, Assistant Professor and Project Supervisor

David Hannah, Academic Chair, MBA Program

Daniel Shapiro, Dean

Melissa McCrae, Executive Director Graduate Programs

The Dean’s Circle

Career Management Centre

Marketing Department

Supporters and Interviewees

Canadian Chamber of Commerce Singapore

Marlene Han, President

Evelyn Wong, Director

Singapore Hotel’s Association

Margaret Heng, Executive Director

Shrestha Sook Yean, Director, Membership and Industry Services

Singapore Environmental Council (SEC)

Howard Shaw, Former Executive Director

Singapore Compact

Thomas Thomas, Executive Director

High Commission of Canada to Singapore

David Sevigny, High Commissioner of Canada

Paula Murphy Ives, Trade Commissioner

Asia Travel Guys

Gillian Guy

Accor Group

Tamara Louis

Holiday Inn Atrium

Kui Kong Yong, Assistant Engineer

InterContinental Singapore

Jackson Wong, Chief Engineer

Siloso Beach Resort

Kelvin Ng, Executive Director

Karl Fischer, Corporate Social Responsibility Executive

Sylvain Richer de Forges, Environmental and Sustainability Specialist

The Regent

Lee Baharrudin, Director of Engineering

Hotel Survey Respondents

Amara Singapore

Conrad Centennial Singapore

Crowne Plaza Changi Airport

Fairmont Singapore

Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel

Grand Hyatt Singapore

Holiday Inn Atrium

Holiday Inn Singapore Orchard City Centre

Hotel Grand Pacific, Singapore

Ibis Singapore Novena

Ibis Singapore on Bencoolen

InterContinental Singapore

Marina Bay Sands

Marina Mandarin Singapore

Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay

Pan Pacific Orchard

Pan Pacific Singapore

Park Regis Singapore

Siloso Beach Resort

The Regent Singapore

Traders Hotel, Singapore

Cities of the Future @ the Centre for Liveable Cities - Singapore!

Centre for Liveable Cities – Singapore

Entirely based on fortuitous events and Paula Murphy Ives (the extremely gracious and knowledgeable Canadian Trade Commissioner for Environmental Industries) kind invitation, I had the pleasure of attending the Centre of Liveable Cities Singapore lecture featuring Professor Alexander J.B. Zehnder, Scientific Director of the Alberta Water Research Institute, and Steffen D. Endler, Senior Vice President for Business Development and Siemens ONE.

I actually met Mr. Zehnder earlier at the networking function hosted by the Canadian High Commission in relation to the Green Building Fair, in which he told me about a completely zero emissions building he had designed in Zurich, Switzerland. After being intrigued by this concept, it was really a treat to hear more about his work and his ideas on sustainability and how it relates to the broader concept of sustainable / liveable cities.

Right away, Mr. Zehnder grabbed the attention of the room by showing us incredibly stark images of the “city of the future.” I’m not sure if any of you are sci-fi fans, but if you’ve ever heard of Star Wars (the city of Coruscant) or seen Ridley’s Scott’s Bladerunner, it gives you a sense of what these ‘darker’ cityscapes of the future might look like. And then the question was posed – what kind of city of the future do we want to live in? One with few green spaces and a constrained level of liveability, or something more attractive?

By thinking in large terms, it’s a lot easier to put our small project, focusing on one sector (hotels) into broader concepts of liveability, city-planning and overall transportation and energy infrastructure – and how this is designed, lived-in, purchased and achieved on both large and small scales.

Zehnder focused significantly on real benchmarks for achieving change, particularly his 2000 Watt Society – a concept which anchors overall sustainability measures to energy use specifically. In his lecture, he focused specifically on individual energy use, and where the dominant portion of each individual’s energy use comes from (housing, transportation, etc – eat up significant percentages). It was amazing how small changes in behaviour and choices can actually dramatically reduce these percentages, and how these are practical shifts – in many cases not involving a reduction in actual standards of living.

This whole point speaks to an underlying message of critical importance. In Zehnders words “its not about being nice…we can become more efficient, more sustainable, it looks like this, the cars are great, BMW, Toyota, and the technology can be sold, and you can make money with this…sustainability in the sense of energy efficiency, but everything that is connected with it, concepts, are economically interesting” While some advocates of sustainability focus on consumer behaviour changes, Zehnder recommends shifting behaviours sideways (asking the consumer to choose between viable alternatives), instead of backwards (e.g. asking the consumer to make a painful sacrifice), so that more efficient, sustainable choices are made:

· Instead of dying of thirst because you’re afraid of consuming bottled water, drink tap water!

· Instead of necessarily biking/walking, why not drive a Tata, or a Smart car?

· Why buy a regular apartment, when you could buy a hyper-efficient, eco friendly condo which will save you money on your amenities?

Zehnder, really emphasized practical, realistic, economically viable solutions to the problems of sustainability, anchored to specific goalposts (such as the 2000 Watt Society measure). Amazing to hear his insights, and there are many ways it connects back to the work we’ve done on the hotel sector. Some of the finest examples of green practices in the hotel sector began by tackling the ‘low hanging fruit first’ and gradually accelerated their momentum by realizing cost savings, greater levels of customer appreciation – all these very practical benefits that could easily end up in the most rational business pitch.

This is not to say that aren’t challenges that extend beyond this: what about projects that are not economically viable in the immediate short term? What about green improvements that make a difference, but that customers don’t value? What metrics should we use to measure progress? These are issues that are still challenges for the sector, but the optimistic, practical, pragmatic and economically conscious approach advocated by Zehnder is a refreshing way to approach these problems.

Learn more about the Centre for Liveable Cities Singapore:

http://gsi.g2m.sg/emails/CLC/issue09.html

Learn more about Prof. Alexander J.B. Zehnder

http://clc.org.sg/index.php?q=2000-watt-society-metropolis-future

http://www.biooekonomierat.de/alexander-zehnder-permanent-guest.html

InterContinental Singapore - LED lighting and Peranakan design

Monday was a day of final meetings in Singapore for the team as three members (Peter, Connie and myself) were scheduled to fly out to Bali on Tuesday.  Our schedule was for Eva and Peter to visit the Regent Hotel in the morning, a 2:00PM team meeting with the High Commissioner of Canada, David Sevigny and Trade Commissioner Paula Murphy Ives, followed by a late afternoon meeting of Connie and myself at InterContinental Singapore.

InterContinental, Singapore

Last week we met with Holiday Inn Atrium another InterContinental Group (IHG) member hotel. Having a second meeting with another hotel in the same chain was really interesting though as IHG has incredibly progressive environmental and CSR requirements across the seven member brands.

Connie and my interview and tour of the InterContinental Singapore was with Mr. Jackson Wong, the Chief Engineer and CSR champion. Some of the environmental CSR highlights of our meeting and tour included:

1.     Viewing the 100% LED lit Man Fu Yuan Chinese Restaurant. The ambiance of the restaurant and lighting choice has immense esthetic and environmental appeal. The restaurant was actually featured in Lighting Today magazine for this project.

Those light fixtures are all lit with LED's

2.     Learning about the organic waste composter – a new project implemented about 2 to 3 months ago, the hotel processes all organic waste through the composter and then re-uses the fertilizer produced on the gardens

3.     Hearing about the hotel’s approach to bottled water – the hotel provides bottles only if requested, instead they offer jugs of ice water which most guests are happy with.

On a social CSR note – the InterContinental, Singapore has undertaken an amazing project in its renovation efforts of incorporating Peranakan architecture and design. The Peranakan people have ancestory of Chinese and Malay or Indonesian and have a rich culture with distinctive textiles and ceramics.  The design esthetic is phenomenal and brings a richness of experience to moving through the hotel space.

On a general note – our team has incredibly thankful for how friendly and helpful each of our interviewees has been in sharing their experience and perspective on environmental initiatives in the hotel industry. It has been inspiring to see the level of interest and engagement that each of our interviewees has.  As our active phase of data collection and conducting interviews has concluded and we start on report writing I can confidently state that our team has been blown away by the level of support we’ve received as well as the passion that our interviewees have for the projects they are undertaking. 

The Regent Hotel

Peter and I arrived at the Regent Hotel at the fringe of the Singapore downtown core. Upon entering the building, we marvelled at the high ceilings, large skylights and the beautifully designed elevators that looked like stylized capsules in the middle of the atrium. When we met Mr. Lee Baharrudin, Director of Engineering, he told us that the Regent was actually one of the first atrium designed hotels in Singapore.

Mr. Baharuddin was clearly passionate about sustainability and had a long history in the industry. He was able to tell us how the practices had changed within the hotel, and things that they were looking into in the future. As with other hotels we had visited, energy and water were large focuses at the Regent as well. Almost all the lighting within the hotel had been replaced with LED lighting, even including the exit signs in the hallways. Energy efficiency had also been improved recently with the installation of a heat recovery system that reclaimed heat from the chilling and boiling system. The entire development made use of NEWater, another trend we have noticed throughout the other hotels we had visited. In Singapore, there is a tax incentive for developments that use NEWater; NEWater is water has been recycled through reverse osmosis, preventing the need for Singapore to import water from Malaysia as had been done in the past. In the future, the Regent is looking into installing solar panels and a food composting system.
After our interview and on-site tour, Mr. Baharrudin was so kind to take us out for lunch at a food court nearby. He expressed his interest in helping and education students and mentioned that he had trained several engineering students in the past. He was really supportive of us, and offered his help in any way that we needed. For lunch we had Indian food, and as usual while eating, Peter was super happy! As was I. We left the our meeting with full stomachs and a new contact that we hope to stay in touch with once we return to Canada.

Connecting: a day of meetings.

Our day started early in the morning last Friday, at a meeting with our funders, Contact Singapore. At the meeting the group presented our findings so far, as well as talked about our progress and future plans for continuing the project. At our presentation, there were two representatives from the Contact Singapore Graduate Project supervisor team, as well as their in-house writer that took notes and asked questions so that we may be featured in their magazine. After our presentation, we got our photo taken by a professional photographer for Contact Singapore’s magazine!

Almost immediately, (after a quick coffee/lunch of course) we had another meeting, this time with former Executive Director of the Singapore Environment Council, Howard Shaw. We had been introduced to him, through Evelyn Wong, an extremely helpful and kind woman that moved from Canada to Singapore, and is involved in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. I personally found our meeting with Howard Shaw to be one of the most interesting and enlightening experiences of our project. The amount of knowledge he had about Singapore the area of sustainability was astounding. Also, I found his perspectives to be very down to earth and practical. I also noticed my MBA mindset starting to creep in as he talked about some of the inefficiencies that existed within this area; one example being the recycling system. He mentioned that recycling bins had been installed in his office building, yet it was all dumped in to one truck and then resorted again at the plant! Our team discussed the potential business opportunity that may exist in this situation as we left the building…

Then we were off to a meeting with Mr. Thomas Thomas at Compact Singapore, a focal point in Asia for the UN Global Compact. It was very interesting to hear Mr. Thomas’ perspective on the role of CSR as compared to Howard Shaw. CSR in its true form according to Mr. Thomas was virtue, as opposed to something that could be used towards financial advantage. One interesting thing he talked about was implicit CSR, something that individuals within a corporation do out of their own good will to help others. The example he gave was a woman that worked for a company that bought chilli from local farmers. Often there would be excess harvest, that would drive prices down and result in a large amount being wasted. This woman decided that she would teach the farmers how to make chilli sauce so that they would be able to sustain their products for a longer time, and still able to sell them in the future.

After an already eventful morning and afternoon, we headed to High Commisioner of Canada’s house. We had met him at the earlier event with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and he invited us to an event at his house; a networking event surrounding the recent ‘Green Building Week’ in Singapore. Surrounded by Canadians again, as well as others from Singapore and other countries, we were able to meet many very interesting people from architects and green building auditors to exterior paint product salespeople and engineers. We even met someone from BCA, an organization that certifies green buildings under a set of criteria. He was very interested in our research as he had indicated the challenge in persuading hotels to become BCA certified. After an eventful day, with our minds full of things to think about, we headed back to get a good night’s sleep so that we would be refreshed and ready for the next day.

Expat's and Report Writing

It's been a few days since we've updated the blog. We've been busy doing follow ups with hotels, commencing background writing on the report (methodology, definitions, existing research summations), and doing some exploring of Singapore.

We have 19 survey respondents so far. Most of these respondents are those with a high interest in environmental issues and CSR so we've recognized that our results will lean towards environmental progressiveness rather than showing a true average of the industry in aggregate. All in all though the project is coming along well. It is a fair amount of work but our team morale is high and we firmly believe that our end result will be informative. We're also learning a lot in the process - we've all become stronger in cold-calling, composing compelling e-mails and letters, and in our interview skills as we begin to meet with industry associations and best-practice leaders.

On Friday we attended an event held by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce here in Singapore. We were invited by Marlene Han, the President (and the aunt of our MBA colleague and friend Chelsea). The event was at Urban Fairways and provided a perfect chance to meet and network with fellow Canadians including David Sevigny, the High Commissioner for Canada to Singapore while working on our swing. We had a great time, and it was wonderful to meet Marlene in person as she has provided advice and contacts as we've pursued this project.

The weekend was great - checked out the nightlife at Clarke Quay, met up with some of Eva's high school friends, ate some amazing Indian food and had snacks and a swim on Sunday with Eva's Father.

Team at Clarke Quay

Back to work now...

Today, we made our way through the forests of Sentosa Island to Siloso Beach Resort, one of our survey respondents and industry best practice leaders who agreed to host our onsite visit and interview. One of Siloso’s CSR Team members gave us a tour of their facilities at the hotel. This Eco-resort was designed from the planning phase to be built in harmony with the surrounding environment, and to minimize any harmful effects once in operation.

Perhaps the most striking thing to me about this resort was the efforts made towards keeping the surrounding environment undisturbed. For example, the terrain had not been flattened to build the resort. Instead, the hotel structure was built on stilts to account for the natural slope of the terrain. Siloso also went to great lengths to preserve trees that had originally existed in the area. When we visited one of the villas, a tree was right in the middle of the room, coming up through the floor and extending through the ceiling! As far as a hotel experience can go, it really felt like you were living amongst the natural habitat. A relaxing soak in one of the villas’ outdoors jacuzzis, listening to the jungle sounds would really complete that experience. There was also a beautiful swimming pool, which was built where an old road used to be, which meant that less digging was required to construct it.

It is clear that Siloso carefully and innovatively manages its energy, water, and waste. Some of the initiatives that we observed included a roof top garden that naturally cools the building through insulation, while saving water through a water collection system embedded below the layers of soil that evaporates back to the roots of the plants, thus reducing the need for irrigation. All the pool water was chlorine free, and was instead ionized to keep it clean, allowing the overflow water to be used for maintaining the gardens. The resort also had its own composting machines for food waste from the F&B department, as well as a system for sorting out recycling. They also build a lot of their own furniture with reclaimed wood pieces from nearby construction sites and deadwood found onsite that would otherwise be wasted. Overall I was highly impressed with the level of detail to which operations were designed with sustainability as the focus. From sustainable mosquito prevention to sourcing herbs from the rooftop garden for the F&B department, the variety of ideas that went into building a sustainable and effective operation was countless and inspiring.

Educating not only their staff but also their guests was evidently very important to their objective. The Eco-tour that had been given to us was actually an option that guests were able to partake in if they chose. Photos and signs with information about conserving the environment surrounded the café area where we ended our tour and were able to ask more questions. All these initiatives were in place with guest education and awareness in mind. More than the objective of reducing their own carbon footprint onsite at the resort, the staff at Silosa had much broader goals of extending their beliefs and practices beyond customers’ stays and into their daily lives. As we sipped our lemongrass drinks made from lemongrass that was sourced from the gardens at Siloso itself, the CSR team gave their thoughts on the industry, and explained their sustainability initiatives in greater detail. Overall, an amazing visit to an amazing resort! A big thanks to the CSR team at Siloso Beach Resort for enlightening us about such inspiring possibilities for hotels within the sustainability space!