Singapore holidays: Eco-friendly and sustainable travel

The ParkRoyal Collection Marina Bay hotel in Singapore prioritises sustainability. Photo / Supplied

Singapore enters the eco-zone

Can the third most densely populated country in the world really offer sustainable tourism? Carolyn Beasley investigates.

Reimagined hotels

As the doors slide open, I step from the concrete jungle into what feels like an actual jungle. My eyes are drawn up a 13-metre-high wall of tropical vegetation, where ferns spill over terraces and palms reach skywards.

It’s Singapore, where glorious gardens are common, but the surprising thing here is the location; inside a hotel. Beyond the aesthetic, this is probably Singapore’s most eco-conscious large-scale hotel, the winner of no less than four sustainability awards since opening at the end of 2021.

It’s a direction the Singapore Government is encouraging. In 2021, it announced the Singapore Green Plan 2030, and in 2022, Singapore’s S$27.7 billion tourism industry joined the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), aiming to become one of the world’s most sustainable urban destinations.

Leading the charge is the ParkRoyal Collection Marina Bay, the hotel where I now stand. Originally built in 1987, the previously tired hotel has emerged from a S$45-million eco-retrofit. Compared to a rebuild, this saved 51,300 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted.

Leading the sustainability charge is the ParkRoyal Collection Marina Bay. Photo / Supplied

I step into a glass lift, ascending past the 2400 tropical plants. Later, a glass ceiling provides a view to the sky, but General Manager Melvin Lim explains this previously allowed the whole interior to heat up. Now, heat-rejecting, double glazing reduces the atrium temperature by two degrees, saving energy-hungry air conditioning.

According to Lim, hotel sustainability features are set to become the norm.

“I’d like to believe we’re at the forefront,” he says. “But everybody’s got to get on to it. Guests are demanding of such things, especially the new generation.”

To better understand the hotel’s eco-features, I join chief tour guide Kingston Too.

We start on the vast deck of the main restaurant, Peppermint. Here, one of the CBD’s largest urban farms is producing more than 60 varieties of edible plants, including greens, turmeric and papayas. There’s a seedling area, and nearby, two food digestors turn food waste into fertiliser.

On the rooftop, 210 solar panels generate enough energy to power all 13 lifts, and even the swimming pool has eco-friendly lighting.

Too explains my room also saves power. Motion detectors know when I’m out, powering down lighting and air conditioning. Plastic water bottles have been replaced by a filtered drinking water tap, and toiletries come in large refillable bottles.

The swimming pool at ParkRoyal Collection Marina Bay features eco-friendly lighting. Photo / Daniel Budiyanto

Futuristic dining

The hotel is not the only addition to Singapore’s sustainable tourism scene, with food and beverage providers jumping on the eco-bandwagon.

Take Vijay Mudaliar, who in 2022 opened the restaurant Analogue, in the historic Catholic convent called Chijmes.

Buoyed by the success of his local-ingredient bar and restaurant Native, Mudaliar now helms a future-dining concept.

As an example, Mudaliar cites his Cactus cocktail, featuring mezcal, prickly pear, aloe vera, and dragon fruit. “I don’t think the world is going to get any cooler,” he says. “And the cactus plants are resilient.”

To reduce carbon emissions from meat and dairy, Analogue is entirely plant-based. And on the materials question, Mudaliar turned to an unexpected source.

“Are plastics really bad?” he asks. “Or is the way we use plastics really bad?” For Mudaliar, it’s the latter, and his quirky blue bar-top was 3D printed from 1600kg of recycled plastic. It’s even wheelchair friendly.

But why stop there? Mudaliar says fungi can also be structures, and his tables are constructed from fungus mycelium.

Singapore's Analogue restaurant channels a future-dining concept. Photo / Supplied

Promoting thoughtful consumption

Hiding in a non-descript shopping mall, tiny restaurant Kausmo also analyses ingredients and waste. Co-founders chef Lisa Tang and manager Kuah Chew Shian specialise in oddly shaped and overstocked ingredients. They champion secondary cuts of meat and “forgotten” Singaporean products, like the herb ulam raja.

Inside, a 16-seater dining table sits beside an oversized bench, and diners watch Tang prepare the six-course meal.

“We usually say our restaurant is based on a concept of thoughtfulness,” Shian says, adding that when the restaurant opened in 2019, “sustainability” was a buzzword, and the team felt it was difficult to achieve in a literal sense.

“Instead of having everybody trying to be perfectly sustainable, we need more people to take the first step,” Shian says.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Mudaliar, who hates the term “sustainable” and prefers the word “progressive”.

“That means, can you just do 5 per cent better?” he says. “If it’s too much pressure to go full tree-hugger, just do one little extra step.”

With Singapore’s Government and tourism entrepreneurs like these leading the charge, Singapore is definitely headed in a more sustainable direction. Watch this space.

The streamlined interior of tiny restaurant, Kausmo. Photo / Supplied

Sustainable activities in Singapore

Try these sustainable activities on your visit to Singapore:

• Take a hike to the Treetop Walk through some of the island’s best remnant tropical rainforest at Macritchie Reservoir.
• Hire a bike and tootle along the waterfront at the East Coast Park. Keep an eye out for wild otters or pied oriental hornbills, both species that have made a remarkable recovery in the last decade.
• To see what Singapore was like 50 years ago, board a traditional ferry known as a “bumboat” and cross to the nearby island of Pulau Ubin. With no cars on the island, cycle through jungle past traditional houses and fruit farms.

Details

Rooms at ParkRoyal Collection Marina Bay start from S$378 twin share. Analogue has sharing plates from S$10-$26 and Kausmo is a set menu for S$105 (plus taxes).