Thrill or chill. Whichever you choose, Asia’s favourite playground has something for you. But how does this Island of attractions and parties fair on the sustainability scale? Let’s find out.
GreenA was commissioned to conduct an environmental sustainability feasibility study on Sentosa Island, which has an area close to 5 square kilometres.
CFD and Shading Simulations
A CFD Simulation for the open spaces was conducted to assess the inter-blocking of wind within the selected locations. A shading analysis of all buildings to understand how the sun moves across the different buildings on the island was also carried out. These studies will determine should there be needs for improvements, based on the point-by-point Green Mark Scheme criteria for districts.
Testing bed for innovations
Apart from being Asia’s favourite playground, what visitors may not know is that Sentosa is also well positioned to be a “living laboratory” for test-bedding and green innovations. Research institutions, universities and companies are welcomed to partner with Sentosa to experiment and test out suitable green ideas on the island and one such institution was the National Technological University (NTU).
SDC collaborated with the National Environment Agency (NEA) to study the impact of good recycling bin designs on improving recycling rates and reducing contamination of recyclables.
Internally, SDC staff were also encouraged to increase recycling efforts. In addition to the usual plastic, paper and can recycling bins, electronic waste recycling bins has been deployed under the RENEW programme.
Ecological impact
The island, home to some 27 carefully-persevered heritage trees and over 30 conserved buildings also houses several developments already certified Green Mark, spanning a total GFA of 80,900m2. Keeping 60% of the island open and green was also part of the Sentosa 10-point Sustainability Plan.
Greening Transporation
With visitors being encouraged to leave their vehicles on the main island, Sentosa was able to reduce infrastructure development for roads on island. Keeping transportation carbon footprints low, visitors can arrive into the island by foot via the canopy sheltered Sentosa Broadway Walk from Vivocity Shopping Mall. Once there, free public shuttle buses are available. Vehicles for daily maintenance works on the island also run-on electricity. 80% of the roads are also shaded by the extensive tree lined greenery, optimizing micro-climatic landscaping.
Greening Programs
Seemingly, Sentosa island already has numerous greening programmes and implementations. Tasked to identify improvement points, GreenA is looking into proposing the involvement tenants to green up their operations conducting eco-audits and churning out recommendation plans for shop tenants and restaurants on the island and/ or the potential of on-site recycling for food and landscape waste, amongst others.
Discussions are currently underway within the Sentosa Development Group Inter-ministerial committee for the next step toward sustainability improvements.
