What We Found on Singapore Green Groups
I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with a group of individuals to start Singapore’s Green Lobang Wiki, a Fandom page for Green Groups in Singapore since September 2020.
After a few months of dedicated volunteer work from all involved, as of Jan 2021, we’ve created pages for 99 “green groups” in Singapore, and the list is constantly growing.
One of my personal reasons for wanting to do the Wiki was because it seemed like no one was really tracking and monitoring the various groups working for the betterment of our environment in Singapore, at least none with any publicly available information. There was no way to get a quick sensing of who was doing what in Singapore, with the only way being to go to each individual website and study them one by one.
Which is why looking at our Organizations page brings me such joy. Out of the 99 organizations we have, about a quarter are inactive, but we still recorded them nonetheless, and it is shaping up to be the most complete, publicly available record of environmental efforts in Singapore.
To see all (or most) of the organizations gathered in one point, neatly organized by various categories, is very cathartic.
Admittedly, our method of categorization is currently a bit arbitrary at best, but even with this simple categorization, some interesting insights emerged.
Most organizations do some level of awareness building, with very few being paid for their events
Our team defined “generating awareness” as doing some kind of public education campaign either via roadshows, events or social media. We noticed that almost all organizations did this, and very few venturing into holding events where you would have to pay to enter.
Looking at the graph, it almost seems like the activities are arranged in order of least to most difficult to execute.
Generating awareness could be a series of posts on social media, which is why I think almost everyone does it. Policy proposals and research require very specific skillsets, a higher level of education, and overall more resources that few organizations can pull off. And the data seems to suggest that getting the market validation where people would pay to attend whatever you are organizing is the hardest of all.
Could this be a potential indicator of the “progression of green groups”? Where only the truly established organizations, the ones that have properly captured the public’s imagination, can “progress” to the level of contributing to policy and research, and have achieved the market validation to even be paid to hold events?
There is a lot of merit in looking deeper into this, and we are just at the starting block.
Recycling and Waste Management are the Top Causes in Singapore
As what the heading says, we didn’t expect recycling and waste management organizations to be the most numerous, but here we are.
One theory I have is that recycling and waste management is very personally relatable. Everyone has trash, but not everyone can relate to say, “Natural Disasters”, especially Singaporeans. So it feels like an ordered list of what is most and least relatable to the general public, and perhaps this can be an insight that environmental groups can use to figure out how to make their cause more captivating to the public.
Trash is in everyone’s homes, so perhaps other organizations can look into how they can relate their causes to what happens in a person’s household?
More Studies Need to be Done
Before anyone jumps out and says it, let me be the first to admit that our methodology, and the conclusions are drawing, are very, very unscientific. We aren’t a group of researchers after all.
But it is interesting to see what jumps out when you put all these organizations together in one place, and it is our hope that with the combined efforts of every green-conscious individual in Singapore, we could create insights in the fight for climate change that no single organization could achieve alone.
If you want to join us in building this vision, head on down to our Discord, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and start editing our Wiki today!
