Singapore National Day: NEWater Case Study
by Micaela Tam
This month we celebrated Singapore’s 53rd birthday! National Day is August 9. This year’s National Day theme was ‘We Are Singapore’, which “defines the Singapore Spirit, invoking the strength and resilience which built Singapore and empowers Singaporeans to overcome future challenges and adversities together.”
In honour of Singapore’s birthday, we shine a focus on Singapore’s water strategy. Based on a holistic approach to collect every drop, reuse water endlessly and desalinate more seawater, Singapore’s water management is recognised internationally. Singapore has diversified its Four National Taps: water from local catchments, imported water, NEWater (high-grade reclaimed water) and desalinated water.
Particularly, Singapore’s NEWater provides interesting lessons in learning by doing and highlights opportunities for multi-sector partnerships in the water sector. NEWater’s journey actually started in the early 1970s: the first master plan was drafted in 1972 and the first experimental water reclamation plant was built in 1974. However, even after investing time and money into the plant, the Public Utilities Board (PUB) had to decommission it just after a year. A large factor of the shutdown of the project was the fact that though the idea was sound, water treatment technologies were extremely costly and unreliable. About 20 years later, in the 1990s, water treatment technology production cost and effectiveness had caught up significantly. PUB and the Ministry of the Environment (now called Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources) sensed a new opportunity and commissioned a team to determine the viability of NEWater, which eventually led to the launch of NEWater to the Singapore public in 2003.
This story is demonstrative of learning through reflection on doing. Knowing when to back out of a project even after investing so much time and money into it is also reflective of a learning process. Moreover, this may be a learning point that we can draw from. If the technology isn’t there yet, it would be more costly to continue pursuing a project that requires it. Thus, being smart about which projects to keep moving forward with and which projects to halt may be the difference between success and failure. It’s a reminder that a part of combinatorial innovation is having all the right parts in place before the dots can effectively and sustainably connected. Singapore’s first water reclamation plant attempt may have ended up decommissioning, but PUB was able to learn successfully from this failure by reflecting on it and positioning for a future next attempt. So, by the 1990s, when the technology was in place to address the need, PUB was able to quickly recognize an opportunity and seize it.
Now, there are five NEWater plants that supply up to 40% of Singapore’s water needs. The establishment of newest of the five, the Changi Water Reclamation Plant, involved PUB’s first public-private partnership with a foreign company. Further, the design, construction and operation of the plant was made possible through the partnership with a consortium formed by Beijing Enterprise Water Group International and UES Holdings, a local environmental engineering company. This is truly an embodiment of the collective spirit of Singapore and illustrative of Singapore’s position as an international water hub.
Even this year, in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of Singapore International Water Week, PUB collaborated with an unconventional partner, Brewerkz, to make Singapore’s first beer made from NEWater: NEWBrew. We can attest firsthand to the popularity of the Brewerkz booth at the conference!
Singapore’s focus on working together with a wide range of stakeholders mirrors Asia P3 Hub’s mission to collaborate through multi-sector partnerships that are based on shared-values. These shared values corral and leverage the combinatorial power of partner resources to combat a mutual problem amongst people who otherwise may have worked autonomously. We hope to be continually inspired by Singapore’s work to collectively turn “isolation into opportunity.”
We end today’s article with the words of the former United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, during his keynote speech in Singapore International Water Week 2018: “Despite the challenges we face, if we work together we will not only persevere, we will thrive. Innovation is soaring in an unprecedented way, alongside the global interconnectedness of people, businesses and culture. The water industry is centrally positioned in this regard.”
Happy National Month, Singapore!
