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Singapore launches campaign to go "haze free"

Xinhua, July 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

As a victim of transboundary haze, which is mainly a result of bush burning in neighboring Indonesia, Singapore has initiated a new campaign to raise awareness of its cause and empower consumers to shift spending from products that cause haze to products that are haze-free.

The campaign was jointly organized by WWF-Singapore, People's Movement to Stop Haze (PM.Haze), and the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), Channel NewsAsia reported on Thursday. It will include educational outreach programs such as school talks and roadshows, with advertisements at bus stops, malls and social media.

According to the introduction on the PM.Haze website, the uncontrolled expansion of palm oil and paper production is in turn one of the main drivers of the serious haze problem that haunted Singapore. It said that palm oil and paper was produced in a way which is called "unsustainable" because it causes long-term harm to the environment and people.

"Palm oil is the world's most used vegetable oil, with Indonesia and Malaysia producing about 85 percent of the global palm oil supply," it said, adding that palm oil can now be found in half the products in a supermarket.

Therefore, the campaign calls for consumers to buy products that are produced with zero burning, zero deforestation, zero peat drainage and zero land conflict, in a bid to take a huge step towards zero haze.

The campaign also aims to collect 50,000 pledges from people in Singapore to support companies that go "haze-free" and work on long-term transformative solutions that will encourage the adoption and use of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO).

"First of all, we want 50,000 pledges, the more the merrier. We have already started to identify the key players in the region and we can then engage with them. We will tell them that their customers demand this, show us what you are doing, and we will be there along the way to help them check their supply chain and to switch to sustainable palm oil as soon as possible," said WWF- Singapore's communications director Kim Stengert. Endi