ST GALLEN, Switzerland – With more than 100 carbon services and trading firms set up here in the past few years, the sustainability space will offer “significant opportunities” for Singaporeans, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng on May 3.

“In the foreseeable five to 10 years, there’ll be a huge demand for jobs in this particular space. In the sustainability space, we see a lot of opportunities for Singaporeans.”

Dr Tan was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the St Gallen Symposium in Switzerland. The symposium is an annual student-run conference taking place in May at the University of St Gallen. It hosts intergenerational debates on economic, political and social developments.

Dr Tan said of the field: “Sustainability is actually existential for us. I mean, everything we do depends on energy.”

The challenge comes as Singapore has to move towards decarbonising its power sector to stay relevant amid the global shift to net-zero, despite its lack of indigenous renewable energy resources, he had said earlier in 2024.

He cited jobs in this space such as sustainability officers, carbon auditors, and engineers who develop smart grids to optimise the flow of electricity.

Firms set up range from those that develop carbon standards and do carbon auditing and verification, to those developing green bonds, infrastructure investments and blended financing platforms – a financing mechanism where funds from risk-tolerant investors pull in more private capital.

The $5 billion fund to build infrastructure for Singapore’s shift to low-carbon electricity, called the Future Energy Fund, will seed and fund some of these projects, said Dr Tan.

He said there are four supply “switches” of clean energy here: natural gas, solar energy, conditional approvals to import low-carbon electricity from Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam, and research into alternative energy sources such as geothermal and nuclear energy.

On low-carbon alternatives, he said the Government completed in March a request for proposal to select an operator for a small-scale exploratory study on using ammonia as a low-carbon fuel for energy generation.

He said a priority is reducing the reliance on natural gas, which generates 95 per cent of electricity in Singapore.

“How do we drop the reliance of the 95 per cent down to maybe less than 30 per cent, over the next 2½ decades? It’s a very, very steep path... Hence, nothing is off the table.”

Dr Tan said he will be making a trip to Norway to study carbon capture and storage, which involves learning how to inject carbon dioxide beneath the North Sea and keep it there as a way of tackling global warming.

“Today, it is one of the first few projects to have actually gone on ahead... Why are we doing it at this particular point in time? I think there’s a significant amount of interest within Asean to look at carbon capture and storage.”

He cited how Indonesia has announced carbon capture and storage initiatives and Singapore has signed an agreement with Indonesia to enable the transport and storage of carbon dioxide between both countries.

“To that end, the Government has been very forward leaning,” he said.

Dr Tan was also asked if Singapore can afford to slow down in its pursuit of growth and productivity.

This came after he was asked a similar question by an audience member at a panel discussion on the need for continual innovation.

“The question we should ask ourselves is: Is the rest of the world, the rest of Asean, going to slow down?” Dr Tan said.

“In many things, we’re net takers. We don’t decide on how things are because, really, our markets, our economy and our size, we’re very, very small.”

On how Singapore overcomes these constraints, he said: “There are a lot of times the reason why we do well is because of the fact that we are agile, we are nimble, we are responsive, and beyond that, we are also pre-emptive.

“We try our best to scour the world. We try to learn from all over the world what it is that they’re doing and how we can not just keep up, but do better.”

Dr Tan said young people today may feel overwhelmed by developments around the world and disruptions like the pandemic.

“What I hope to be able to do is to tell all of our young people: ‘Never fear, because we will do our utmost best to have all of your backs covered.’”

Correction note: This story has been edited for clarity.