Visitors to Singapore this month can join the city-state’s sustainability journey, as the Go Green SG festival adopts a destination experience angle through a collaboration with the Singapore Tourism Board.
The festival, formerly known as Climate Action Week, is led by the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment and features a host of sustainability-related events and activities in July that are put together by the public and private sectors.
Gardens by the Bay offers Sustainability Garden Cruiser Audio Tours as part of Go Green SG, where visitors will ride a cruiser to get an overview of the attraction’s sustainability features through the 30-minute audio tour. The tour runs daily at 12.00.
The attraction also conducts various activities under the Nature and Sustainability Tour banner – such as a Biodiversity and Ecosystems tour that looks at diverse habitats from around the world; and a Carbon and Climate tour that reveals Gardens by the Bay’s efforts in cutting carbon emissions.
Over at resort island Sentosa, visitors can join a two-hour guided bus tour that conveys the transformation of the island’s environment, or sign up for one of many enriching SentoSights activities organised by The Untamed Paths.
Green discoveries in July are available beyond major attractions, as curious ones are also invited to wade through freshwater forest streams and learn about stream ecology; find out how Black Soldier Fly contributes to waste management; spot flying lemurs in a secondary forest; uncover Singapore’s urban farms; and more.
One of Singapore’s most innovative tour designers, Tribe, is also contributing to the festival with its new Zero to Hero Food Sustainability Tour, which takes participants to various locations to find out what Singapore is doing to ensure and secure its food supply, and how ugly food can remain useful.
Tribe’s head of partnerships & business development, Yock Song Law told TTG Asia that the tour will remain on the market as a monthly experience, even as Go Green SG concludes, and will be offered mainly to corporate groups and niche international traveller segments.
Indie Singapore Tours, also known for curating unique tours of the city-state, has developed two programmes for Go Green SG – Planting Seeds, Harvesting Culture, which explores innovative sustainable initiatives in the Henderson area; and the History Wanderers, a kayaking tour that takes participants on kayaks down Marina Bay, where they will learn about Singapore’s relationship with water and commitment to water conservation. These activities will also be available beyond the festival.
Thiam Wei Toh, founder and chief storyteller of Indie Singapore Tours, said these sustainability tours could appeal to travellers, as “Singapore’s sustainability journey is unique”.
“We are limited in many different ways, but because of that we have to come up with innovative ways to solve the different ‘problems’ that we have,” said Toh.
Pointing to his History Wanderers kayak tour, he said the experience is a good way to understand how Singapore as a country approaches and resolves issues around natural resources.
The full list of tours is available here.
Chandra has 23 years tenure with TTC, initially managing the Australian Groups Desk for Insight Vacations for many years before taking on her elevated global groups role based out of London in 2014.
