AAG 333 Resource and Environmental Management

Environmental Ethics and Ecology 1:

Environmental conscientiousness of Youths in Singapore

Loh Soo Hua Debbie

077248D08
Year 3 - BA (Education)
Tutors: A/Prof Wong Tai Chee
Date of submission: 28th October 2009

Abstract

This paper reviews on how environmental-conscious are the Youths in Singapore. Out of three
issues, the review will focus more and mainly on the second issue: Firstly, how the government
policies try to engage and empower the public, particularly in Youth, to address environmental
subjects through 3Ps partnership. Secondly, analysing how environmental conscious are the
Youths in Singapore based on survey findings and thirdly, giving suggestion on ways to further
promote environmental consciousness among Youths in Singapore in the near future.

Key words: Sustainable development, Environmental consciousness, Youths,

Social attitude, 3Ps Partnership

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Part I
Introduction
Since gaining independence in 1965, Singapore faces the need to quickly develop her economy
and creating jobs for her people. With quick industrialisation in the 1970s and 1980s, negative
impacts are brought upon its environment. Fortunately, the state government saw this problem
early and since then, rectified it through the implementation of various policies to protect its
environment for sustainable development in Singapore (Tan, Lee & Tan, 2009). To sustain a
high quality environment, eventually, a bottom up approach is needed, in which the public needs
to their parts in protecting the environment. In order for the public to contribute, they must first
be environmentally conscious. Environmental consciousness is defined as how aware an
individual is about the environment and the subsequent behaviour and mentality that one does
adopt towards protecting the environment. (Ooi, 1995).Ultimately, environmental consciousness
has to be constructed on sets of values that are strongly rooted and believed by each individual
since young, especially during their Youth period. It is extremely important that we looked into
Youths, for they, being the key beneficiaries of sustainable development matter, must be
highlighted to the consequences of their own actions by becoming genuinely environmental-
conscious.

Understanding how important Youths are in sustaining future development of Singapore, I

therefore seek to explore and analyse, how environmentally conscious are the Youths in
Singapore. In this paper, I will consider the Youths in Singapore to be those between the age of
15 to 29 years old (National Youth Council, 2006).

Part II
Role of the state through 3Ps partnership to promote environmental consciousness

To analyse how environmental consciousness are the Youths in Singapore, I will first need to
look into the role that the government plays in promoting environmental consciousness among
Youths. The government approach this by working with people in the community through the
“3P Partnership”- the public, private and people sector(Tan, Lee& Tan, 2009).

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To allow the 3Ps partnership to engage Youths effectively, they have do so through three key
principles, namely “communicating” with Youths, “engaging” Youths and “empowering”
Youths to be environmental conscious.

Communicating with Youths - Public Sector

It is important to encourage the Youths to take up environmental ownership and the first step is
to communicate with Youths through channels such as schools, mass Medias or campaigns. If
the communication method is effective, it will lead Youths to build interest on environmental
issues and encourage them to take action in maintaining it (Tan, Lee& Tan, 2009).

Schools play a dominant communicating role where they educate and mould Youths’ attitude
towards the environment. In school, the teaching curriculums are conscientiously integrated with
environmental issues (Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, 2009). Student Youths
are enabled to take part in programmes organised by Ministry of Education (MOE) and the
Singapore Environment Council for instance, National Environmental Agency (NEA). Through
NEA, it has managed to set up the Youth Environmental Envoy (YEE), where more than 200
youths are trained as YEE to implement environmental projects. This move is targeted to allow
Youths to lead and be a role model in promoting environmental consciousness within their peers.
Outdoor school activities such as “Learning Journeys” are also conducted in a hope to create
genuine awareness and to change the Youth’s negative attitude towards the environment ( Inter-
Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development (IMCSD), 2009).

Engaging and Empowering Youths -Private and People Sector

It is equally important to engage the Youths in both private (companies and business
associations) and people sector. By doing so, the Youths are able to provide their expertise to
both sectors. When the Youths realised that their ideas are being valued, they will feel engaged
and increasingly become empowered to tackle challenging environmental issues. Eventually, the
Youths would take up their own initiatives to implement different programmes to deal with
environmental challenges for they become truly self motivated to be environmentally conscious
of their surroundings (Tan, Lee& Tan, 2009).

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Private Sector
To engage Youths in environmental issues, some companies had worked with NGOs and schools
to mould behavioural change in Youths through sponsoring awards and events. For instance,
under the National Environmental Agency’s (NEA) Corporate and School Partnership
Programme (CASP), it provides more than 170 companies to work with schools where students
are supported to discover solutions for environmental problems. By doing so, the Youths will
intrinsically take up ownership role for the environment, thus increasing their environmental
consciousness (IMCSD, 2009).

People Sector
The people sector is generally made up of the Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the
Community Development Councils (CDCs). To encourage environmental consciousness among
Youths in Singapore, many Youths are empowered to set up Youth-centric NGOs. An existing
youth-centred NGOs is the SYiNc, a group of Youth volunteer who promote environmental
consciousness through planning events (IMCSD, 2009). As for CDCs, recently, Deputy Prime
Minister Teo Chee Hean for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC has engaged and led a group of 100 Youths
volunteers to clean up a river, Sungei Api Api. With such events that engage and empower
Youths, one Youth remarked that he found this activity enjoyable and enlightening, for he
become more environmentally conscious thereafter (Wong, 2009).

Part III
After looking at the role of the government in promoting environmental consciousness in
Youths, I will now analysed whether the above government policies and Youth program
generally appeal to and genuinely encourage Singapore Youths to become environmental
conscious. To do so, surveys (comprising of 5 open and closed ended questions each) were given
out to 20 targeted Singapore Youths.

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Survey findings

School - Environmental education

In question 1, the result is tabulated and shown in graph 1. It can be seen that 14 Youths
agreed that they are “aware” while 3 Youths are “very aware” of the importance to care for their
environment after attending various environmental activities that were conducted in school. The

After listening and attending to various environmental talks, lessons and environmental activities
such as the "Learning Journey" organised by schools, I am very aware of the importance to care for
our environment
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14
12
10 Singapore Youths

8
6
4
2
0
Very Aware Aware Somewhat aware Not aware at all

Graph 1: Results showing how aware Youths are of the environment after attending school
environmental activities.

remaining 3 Youths acknowledged that they were somewhat aware of the importance to care for
their environment through the school activity. Interestingly, none of the Youths chose “Not
aware at all” as their answer. This supports with the earlier findings that schools indeed play an
important role in educating the Youths about their environment (IMCSD, 2009). Through
environmental programs in schools, Youths are encouraged to be aware and show concern for
the environment.

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Impact of media: Youth-centric advertisements

The Youths were then asked if they find “mass media which currently features Youth conveying
environmental messages appeals to them as a Youth and encourage them to be more
environmental conscious” in question 2. The outcomes indicated that majority of the Youths (12)
felt that Youth-centric environmental advertisement to be appealing in encouraging them to be
environmental conscious.

8 Youths, however, felt that mass media which features Youth convey environmental messages
do not appeal to them to be more environmental conscious. These Youths had comments such
as:

“Not many explanations why we should follow what it says. Not convincing”

“Somehow I have this idea that as youths, they are saying those things to be just politically
correct. I’m not convinced that they actually mean what they say”

From these Youths’ comments, it clearly demonstrates they are still not convinced that mass
media which features Youth conveying environmental messages can help instil environmental
consciousness in them. They felt that the featured Youths conveying these messages in mass
media insincere and do not truly practise what they preach once off-screen. Also, they generally
find that the environmental messages being conveyed in the mass media insufficient and shallow.
This could be in line with Kau, Tan and Jochen (1998), where they found out that Singaporean in
general, do not trust media credibility. Thus, advertisers are constantly challenged to deal with a
big group of unconvinced audience, in this case, Youths, when communicating messages about
caring for the environment through mass media.

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Daily life

Question 3 was then raised to see what environmental friendly activities the Youths would do in
their daily lives. With such, the results are compiled and shown in the following Pie chart 2.

I do the following things in my daily life

Going shopping with a shopping bag and cut down the use of plastic bags

Switching off any electrical appliances after using to save energy consumption

Bother to recycle materials according to whether they are aluminium, plastics and others (paper) in the
recycle bin slots

Reuse plastic bottles for a few times before throwing it away

Read up on current environmental issues through television, newspaper reports, internets and radio

Take part and volunteer in any kinds of local environmental awareness activities at least once this year
(such as Environmental Youth Forum, Earth hour 2009- switch off light for 1 hour)

Purchase and use environmentally-friendly products (e.g. cosmetics, clothings and accessories)

I'm not bothered about doing any of the activities as listed above

8% 10%
3%
14%

29%

25% 10%

Pie chart 2: Environmental friendly activities that Youths will do in their daily lives

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From the chart, it can be seen that Youths on the whole, are aware and conscious of practising
environmental friendly activities for none of the Youth agreed that they are not bothered about
doing any of the activities listed. The results also showed two activities which are more
consciously practised by the Youths. Up to 17 Youths agreed that they would consciously
“switch off any electrical appliances after using to reduce energy consumption” while another 15
Youths agreed that they would “reuse plastic bottles”. It can be seen that Youths are consciously
practising the two Rs, reducing and reusing. In comparison, recycling activity such as disposing
waste into recycling bins is less practised by Youths. Only 6 Youths had practised recycling
waste by placing them respectively into recycling bin. Though Chong (2004) mentioned that the
recycling bins were normally placed at public areas with high human traffic, I believe that the
bins might not be attractive enough to encourage Youths to actively recycle.
Individual attitudes
Table 3 presents the overall attitudes of the Youths towards environmental consciousness based
on 6 statements. Singapore Youths on the whole, are aware of environmental problems and has

Overall Attitudes of the 20 Youths towards Environmental Consciousness

Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Can’t

Agree Disagree decide
1. It is extremely hard for
someone like me to do much 1 2 3 11 3 0
for the environment

2. I do whatever it takes to save

the environment, even if it
takes more time or cost more 1 2 11 3 1 2
money
3. There are more significant
things for me to do in life than
to save the environment 1 1 5 9 3 1

4. It is meaningless for me in
doing my part to save the
environment unless others are 1 1 5 10 3 0
doing the same too.
5. Even if I did not make any
consideration for the
environment, there would be 0 1 5 8 6 0
no difference.
6. I find that many information
about environmental threats
are overstated. 0 1 4 8 7 0
Table 3: Attitudes of the Youths towards Environmental Consciousness

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remain positive about protecting the environment as seen in statement 1, 3,4,5 and 6. For
instance, more than three quarter (14) of the Youths surveyed disagree or strongly disagree that
that it is “hard for them to save the environment” (statement 1).
However, Singapore Youths are still not really keen to forgo personal comfort for a better
environment. Only 3 Youths strongly agree or agree that they would be “willing to save the
environment, even if it means more money or more time” (statement 2) About half (11) of the
Youths surveyed remained neutral to this while 2 Youths can’t decide and the remaining 6
disagreed with the statement. This coincides with Kau, Tan and Jochen (1998) findings that
despite most Youths being aware of the environmental problem, many will be caught in a
dilemma when asked to compromise and forgo persona comforts; lowering materialism and
consumerist lifestyle (Yang, 2006) for a more sustainable environment.
Part IV
Possible ways to promote environmental consciousness in Youths now and in the near future
After examining that not all policies and Youth programs appeal to and genuinely encourage
Singapore Youths to become environmental conscious, I will now take into consideration of the
suggestions given by the target Youths in question 5 of the survey in how they felt environmental
consciousness could be encouraged in them. Some of the ideas reinforced by the target Youths
are:

“The government and NGOs which are promoting environmental consciousness should go
through the mass media especially the avenues which are always accessed by Youths e.g.
youtube, facebook to promote their events and attract youth”.

“Nowadays, youths are more engaged in using facebook, youtubes etc. Hence, to promote
environmental consciousness among youths, I think they should have a facebook page and an
advertisement on youtube that is interesting enough for youths to watch and share it around with
their peers”

It is interesting to note that most of the surveyed Youths believe that two of the more Youth
identified avenues of mass media, Facebook (picture 4) and Youtube, will motivate them to
become environmentally conscious.

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Picture 4: environmentally awareness groups that Youths can join in Facebook.

Facebook (2009) proves to be popular among Youths for it allows Youths to connect to anyone
in their social network. Within this social network, it allows individuals the freedom to share all
kinds of information using various fast and efficient medium. Thus, environmental information
can be easily shared and accessed by Youths. When Youths received and accept invitations to the
various environmental awareness groups (Picture 4), the Youths could be positively influence
and encouraged to be more environmental conscious if they see that the people in the group are
actively promoting activities for a more sustainable environment. Therefore, I believe that
various sectors should actually tap upon Facebook and Youtube in a bid to successfully promote
environmental consciousness in Singapore Youths now, and in the future.

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Conclusion
To reiterate, I aimed to find out how environmentally conscious are the Youths in Singapore.
Through survey findings, it is heartening to find out that Youths are generally well aware of the
problems and practise reducing and reusing items more frequently. Schools are also effective in
building up the environmental awareness levels among Youths.

However, I believed that much more efforts still need to be done to alter the Youth’s social
attitude towards becoming environmental conscious to recycle and also the willingness to forgo
personal material comforts for a sustainable environment. I found out that Singapore Youths are
still caught in a dilemma when asked to compromise and forgo persona comforts (affecting their
current high standard of living) for a more sustainable environment. As Youths are getting
increasingly engaged in various mass media network, different sectors could therefore look into
Facebook and Youtube and increase its credibility so as to encourage environmental
consciousness in Youth now and in the future.

In summary, though policies might encourage environmental consciousness in Youth, much

more depend on the mentality of the Youths themselves. Essentially, Youths must sincerely
develop a mindset and modify one’s own social attitude towards caring for the environment by
becoming more environmentally conscious.

2248 words

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