Strategies to promote the adoption of sustainable drainage by private developers: a case study from Singapore

ABSTRACT

Different policy mechanisms to encourage private property developers to adopt sustainable drainage features have been tried in many countries with moderate success. Singapore’s ABC Waters Programme encourages the adoption of sustainable drainage by private developers through certification amongst others. However, this has not been implemented by all developers uniformly. Therefore, using Singapore as a case study we analyse the key strategies to promote sustainable drainage features. In-depth interviews with twelve prominent property developers were conducted to understand their knowledge, attitude and adoption behaviour. There were no substantial differences in company characteristics between adopters and non-adopters. Five main types of strategies: right timing, industry engagement, public education, financial incentives, and regulations were suggested to increase the adoption of sustainable drainage features in Singapore. These strategies could be suitable for other countries pursuing similar policy goals as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable drainage
• ABC Waters
• water sensitive urban design
• residential property
• Singapore

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all interviewees who kindly shared their experiences. This research received funding support from PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency (grant number 1160314) and the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities of the Commonwealth of Australia (IRP2.2).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

^1. As perceived by the interviewees; maintenance costs for sustainable drainage features may also be lower.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities of the Commonwealth of Australia [IRP2.2]; PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency [1160314].