Managing Our Environmental Footprint
Acting responsibly through sustainable practices, behaviour and environmentally friendly technology.
Managing Our Environmental Footprint
As a bank with extensive operations across Asia, it is important for us to manage our environmental footprint. We believe in doing the right thing by our people and embedding environmental and societal factors in our business operations. Core to this is our commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions from our own operations by 2022, a target which we are on-track to reaching.
DBS Newton Green – Singapore’s first net-zero building by a bank
One example of how we are working towards our operational net-zero target is DBS Newton Green – a project we undertook in 2021 to retrofit one of our oldest office buildings into Singapore’s first net-zero development by a bank, and one of just over 500 net-zero commercial buildings globally1.
DBS Newton Green is Singapore’s first net-zero building by a bank
The old building consumed about 845,000 kWh each year, equivalent to the energy consumed by about 200 four-room HDB homes in Singapore every year. Supported by a grant awarded under the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore’s Green Buildings Innovation Cluster programme, DBS engineered DBS Newton Green to reduce energy consumption as much as possible, while maximising renewable energy generation on-site via a solar panel array spanning more than 1,000 sqm.
The retrofitted building houses over 400 employees, and is an important step forward in understanding how net-zero technologies can be scaled up to not only move DBS closer towards its net-zero objectives, but to also help other organisations green their operations as we collectively realise a more sustainable future for Singapore.
As the first Asian bank and Singapore company to join the global renewable energy initiative, RE100, DBS has committed to utilising 100% renewable energy in all our markets.
Read more about our RE100 Commitment.
Everything Solar Everywhere
In maximising our operational renewable production, we have adopted an ‘Everything Solar Everywhere’ initiative, which entails ensuring that every appliance installed in our workspaces runs on renewable energy, where possible.This has led to installations of solar arrays on our buildings, along with solar-powered air conditioners, exhaust fans, walkway lights, parking lamps, ATM kiosks, fountain pumps, and fans on our premises, across the markets we operate in.
Purchasing green energy, RECs and carbon offsets
While we are committed to reducing our consumption and pursuing renewable energy sources, there is still a need for us to purchase energy at this stage.
In addition, we recognise the need for offsets through the purchase of RECs or carbon credits to achieve our net-zero operational carbon goals despite best efforts in our strategy.
[1] World Green Building Council
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