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SINGAPORE: With the global economic downturn, some Singapore companies have put environmental, human resource and long-term business issues on the back burner.
According to a survey by the Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI), 36 per cent of locally-based firms surveyed were not even aware of the importance of business operations on environmental issues.
Twenty-four per cent merely intended to meet government regulations for human resource and environmental standards.
The survey also found that reducing energy usage remained a low priority for most Singapore companies.
SHRI said companies should be more pro-active in caring for the environment and their people.
Davig Ang, executive director, SHRI, said: "Do we need to look at government laws and regulations just to follow them and have a compliant business? We would rather the firms think in the longer term, that they need to sustain their business in other ways, even without the incentives that have been offered."
Experts and companies also said the downturn will not affect the building of environmentally-sustainable and people-friendly businesses. In fact, some companies are even benefiting from having such policies, and even making money out of those solutions.
Sandeep Bhattacharya, ASEAN vice-president, Ramco Systems, said: "Most of them look at certain software products that actually carry out physical energy-saving and process optimisation for large manufacturing organisations, by reducing their consumption of power, heat, energy or carbon emissions. These then provide the firms tangible dollar savings in a very short time frame of a few months."
While moving businesses to a more sustainable model may take some time, experts and companies said it does not take much cash to do so. As a result, everyone, at least financially, should be able to afford to make the change.
- CNA/yt
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