SABIC employees spread message of sustainability among students through beach clean-up activity, runs competition to spur ideas for waste management

SABIC reached out to over 80 primary school students during the year-end school holiday to educate them on sustainable living values and waste management, as part of the company’s focus on Sustainability through its “Lights of Our Future” global CSR program.

Collaborating with three Family Service Centres (FSC) – SBL Vision, Tampines FSC and TRANS FSC (Bedok), SABIC took the students for a morning waste clean-up exercise at the East Coast Park on 23 November 2017, together with more than 30 of its employees and staff from the FSCs.

The aim of the program was to create an awareness among the younger generation on how waste could affect the sustainability of our environment amid a growing and more affluent population. Participants also learned the challenges of litter picking and gained an understanding of the indirect and heavy cost of trash collection for recycling.

Over 2 kilometres of the East Coast Park was covered where more than 10 kilograms of trash were collected in one and a half hours. The trash were sorted into trash bags that were labelled glass, metals, paper and plastic. Common waste items collected included plastic bags, cans, cigarette buds, cardboards, beer bottles and wire meshes.

A module on waste management, developed by SABIC employees, and a competition for the best ideas in waste reduction were conducted for the students in the afternoon at Poi Ching School, whose Principal, Mr Andrew Mah volunteered to host the students of the program, as he found it to be very meaningful and aligned to the school’s own values.

The “Lights of Our Future” medals and prizes were presented to the winning teams by SABIC’s Vice President and Region Head for South Asia & ANZ, Janardhanan Ramanujalu. All participants walked away with book vouchers.

“SABIC is committed to driving sustainable development and inclusive growth in communities where we operate,” said Mr Ramanujalu. “The Lights of Our Future CSR program is one such example of our educational efforts in helping to cultivate awareness of sustainability among our next generation, and we are looking forward to expanding our partnerships with the government, relevant associations and community to do more in this area.”

“The Singapore Heartbeat is an in-thing in MOE, said Mr Andrew Mah, Principal, Poi Ching School. “Poi Ching School is honored and pleased to be able to partner SABIC and the 3 FSCs on this meaningful CSR Program. In participating, we are sure that the students will be more enlightened and be motivated to look into issues of Sustainability in Singapore. This is definitely a great contribution to The Singapore Heartbeat!”

Sharing her delight, Mrs Yee-Chow Choy Yin, Chief Executive Officer of TRANS Family Services said she “felt that this was a meaningful way for students to spend their school holiday.” “I was encouraged to see how SABIC’s employees have spent many hours of their time and energy putting this program together, to raise awareness on an important topic and to make this into an enriching event for the children,” she added.

The “Lights of Our Future” is a SABIC global CSR program that was rolled out in 2014 across China and Singapore. Since inception, it has reached over 1000 students in Singapore from Queenstown Primary School, St. Joseph’s Institution Junior and Unity Primary School. More than 140 SABIC employees in Singapore have devoted some 1500 hours to the development and delivery of the program since 2014. The program is gradually being introduced to other countries in Asia, such as India and Thailand.