Campaigns

Clean and Green Singapore

This campaign (organised by National Environmental Agency) aims to promote environmental awareness and also encourage Singaporeans to live in a more environmentally-friendly way. It started off as “Clean and Green Week”, where green activities were organised for one week each year. Clean and Green Week went on for 17 years until 2007, where the campaign was renamed and transformed into “Clean and Green Singapore” which has still been ongoing to this date.  This new campaign has the same aims, however instead of only carrying out green activities for a week, it is carried out all year round so as to promote a more pro-active role in taking up responsibility for the environment.

One of the main events is the community carnivals which are held in many areas of Singapore. These carnivals reach out to citizens from all the corners of the country to educate them about environmental issues and also suggest courses of action that an individual can take to adopt a more sustainable way of living. In addition to reaching out to the main public, carnivals and events are also held in schools to inform and educate the younger generation.

 

Clean and Green Singapore Southeast Carnival at Changi City Point
Clean and Green Singapore Southeast Carnival at Changi City Point
Tree-planting ceremony at CGS Carnival at NorthEast
Tree-planting ceremony at CGS Carnival at NorthEast
Recycle Craft Workshop for kids at CGS  SouthEast carnival
Recycle Craft Workshop for kids at CGS SouthEast carnival

 

Several competitions are held to encourage more involvement from the community. One main successful competition is the annual ‘Eco Music Challenge’ where musicians can enter their own pro-environmental songs to win. The winning song will be used for the theme song for the year which will be broadcasted on local television channels and also online. Other competitions such as logo designing and photography competitions are also held.

 

Poster for EcoMusic Challenge 2014
Poster for EcoMusic Challenge 2014

 

Avenues for citizens to get involved in helping the environment are provided. People can sign up as volunteers for councils involved in recycling, anti-littering, dengue prevention and resource conservation.

Evaluation:
This campaign centres on education. It targets the behaviour choice of citizens and mainly targets on the internal factors affecting behaviour. It encourages a more sustainable lifestyle by giving people tips on what they can do to achieve this. By having advocates helping to inform and teach others, this increases people’s knowledge and also self-efficacy as people have personal contact with these advocates hence they are able to ask any questions if need be. The informers may also serve as motivators to increase their efficacy. Directly giving instructions and advice may also result in a development of personal responsibility in listeners. Making the event a fun and family-friendly place develops a more relaxed and casual atmosphere, where people would be more likely to absorb the information and be open to learning.

Keep Singapore Clean Movement


http://www.publichygienecouncil.sg/images/default-source/splash-banner/banner1-1.jpg?sfvrsn=0

The “Keep Singapore Clean Movement” has the main aim of encouraging citizens to play an active role in ensuring Singapore’s cleanliness. Its objective is to change the notion that Singapore is a “cleaned city”, whereby it is cleaners who clean the city and not the public being responsible for their own actions. Its main philosophy is being considerate in shared public spaces, cleaning up after yourself and also advocating good behaviour for Singapore’s cleanliness.

The main approach of the movement is to place social pressure on those who are “not-so-good’ (people who only behave responsibly based on the context) or “ugly”(those who often litter and dirty the environment regardless of situation) to improve their behaviour. Those who always display good environmental behaviour are encouraged to advocate and educate the former two groups.

 

approach

The movement’s website provides abundant information and suggestions on what communities, schools, organisations and individuals can do to help advocate and practice good cleanliness behaviour.

For example, in a community, people are encouraged to organise their own litter-picking activity within their own community. Guidelines, instructions and checklists on how they can go about doing it are provided to make the process easier. In line with the approach, communities should also advocate good behaviour by reminding residents to clean up and throw litter properly in the rubbish bin.

 

Members of Nee Soon community cleaning up at a litter-picking acitivity
Members of Nee Soon community cleaning up at a litter-picking acitivity

 

Organisations such as businesses, NGOs or associations are also encouraged to promote environmental behaviour by educating staff about good proper habits and also organising green activities.

 

RSVP Singapore senior volunteers doing their part to clean up Singapore
RSVP Singapore senior volunteers doing their part to clean up Singapore

 

For schools, teachers are also encouraged to inculcate good environmental values in students by guiding them to carry out good cleanliness activities both within and beyond the school compounds. Cleanest classroom competitions, displaying of self-made educational artwork, litter-picking sessions and outreach programmes are just some suggestions provided to foster proactive behaviours in students.

Students from CHIJ St. Nic's Girls' school picking up litter
Students from CHIJ St. Nic’s Girls’ school picking up litter

 

Educational materials can also be used by advocators to remind citizens of the proper behaviour in order to keep the country clean.

A poster to remind residents in the Nee Soon community
A poster to remind residents in the Nee Soon community
Poster designed by Dunman High School
Poster designed by Dunman High School

This campaign focuses more on community involvement and social norms to promote good cleanliness behaviour. It encourages people to make a commitment to help clean Singapore and rope in their community to do it too. This is done by providing a sign up page for those who wish to organise a litter-picking activity, they will then be provided with information and toolkit to carry out their self-initiated activity. By letting people sign up and declare their intentions voluntarily, this increases their sense of personal responsibility, leading to environmental behaviour.

In addition, by asking these advocates or initiators to gather their community, this develops a group identity in caring for the environment. A social norm of practicing good cleanliness in the group is established and this may lead to behaviour change among individuals. A sense of belonging and actively caring will be more likely to be developed in a group setting. Furthermore, change in this level has a larger impact. Even if the activity of picking up litter does not lead to much environmental impact, it leads to people engaging in more sustainable behaviours in the future as they may have developed a more positive attitude towards environment.

Prompts such as the posters made by schools and communities are also provided to remind others to behave appropriately, which is also helpful in fostering good behaviour.

However, this programme must be regularly done or repeated as a one-time event would be less likely to create a long-term behaviour change. Hence, advocators should be encouraged to organise weekly or monthly programs for the community.