NEA became an Eco-Office

NEA’s officially GREEN! It was among the four pioneer organisations that attained the Green Office Label award last August.

According to the Singapore Environment Council, NEA (Headquarters) passed the audit with flying colours (could NEA expect anything less of itself?). The auditor was highly impressed with NEA’s environmental programmes and commitment from senior management and staff to be green at work.

The honour came quickly after NEA became an Eco-Office in August 2005, in a project spearheaded by City Developments Limited (CDL). After this, we’re working to get our off-sit offices Green-labelled too.

Environment Building is Energy Smart

Environment Building lived up to its name by being one of the first eight buildings to earn the new Energy Smart label, launched by Senior Parliamentary Secretary Koo Tsai Kee.

A joint initiative by NEA and the Energy Sustainability Unit of the National University of Singapore, the Energy Smart Building Scheme accords recognition to buildings in the top 25 per cent of their class for achieving exemplary energy efficiency without compromising on indoor environmental quality.

By providing them with qualitative and objective indicators to track the energy efficiency performance of buildings, the label encourages property owners and professionals in the real estate industry to incorporate energy efficiency into the design, development and management of buildings.

Little things count, too

NEA’s offices are built to be easier on the conscience. Technical wood was used to construct out desks, carpets made from recycled content were laid, and motion sensors were installed at common areas to conserve energy.

Some other examples? Here, we encourage the use of two-sided printing as much as possible and switch off the lights. We re-use old envelopes and at induction learn to set our computers to energy-saving mode. It goes without saying that we recycle our trash paper (there are paper recycling boxes everywhere).

Also, our canteen’s not just great on food (and the food here is pretty darned good). It’s also a straight-A grade canteen, as you’d expect.

We’re into green transport, too. We recently converted one of our older cars to a CNG vehicle, which means we now have two. Our third car is a fuel-cell car that Daimler-Chrysler is test-bedding in Singapore – something we helped facilitate.

Environmental Training and Education

As part of building and nurturing the organisation’s human capital, staff in NEA are offered training and learning programmes and encouraged to continuously upgrade themselves. Last financial year, we have committed 4.1% of our annual payroll to staff learning and education.

We also set the strategic learning direction by providing corporate-wide and key programmes as well as core departmental training courses that support the NEA’s strategic objectives for the year. Some of these courses conducted included :

Marketing Skills
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Environmental Law and Enforcement
Foundation Course for Environmental Health Officers
Understanding ISO 14001
Project Management
Managing Events

Apart from learning programmes, NEA has a Sponsorship Scheme to encourage officers to continuously learn and upgrade themselves. The Scheme reimburses eligible officers 50% of compulsory course fees for certificate, undergraduate, diploma and graduate diploma courses. A total of 44 sponsorships had been given out to staff since its inception in 2003.

As part of NEA’s Talent Management Framework to groom and develop its high potential officers, young promising officers were given the opportunities to demonstrate and stretch their potential via involvement in project task forces/ committees within and across Divisions/Departments and postings to departments. To heighten their development, selected officers were granted postgraduate scholarship awards to pursue Masters programmes locally or overseas. Officers in key positions were also sent for management development/ leadership programmes at certain milestones in their career.

NEA is SQC recertified!

NEA successfully renewed our Singapore Quality Class (SQC) certification, with an improvement in our scores. We have made another step towards becoming an excellent organisation. It was the first time we were certified as NEA. Our results are in Band 4, scoring between 450 - 499 points, compared to the score of between 400-450 points during ENV days. Our consultant, aAdvantage, informs us that we have mostly likely scored about 480 and above.

Having renewed our SQC, we will not rest on our laurels. In FY06, we will aim to obtain ISO certification as one organisation and prepare for the prestigious SQA. For a start, we will continue to build on our identified strengths and address the areas for improvement.