Facilitating sustainable behavior through urban infrastructures: learning from Singapore?

Abstract

It is widely agreed that technical innovation and behavioral changes have to be part of any sustainability strategy. Pursued in isolation, however, they miss out on the significant potential of strategic synchronization of technical and social change, in order to facilitate sustainable behavior through appropriate material infrastructures. Such strategies require detailed knowledge about people’s preferences and willingness to adopt new socio-technical settings. It is suggested that this knowledge is best acquired through participatory design processes because of an assumed causal link between decision-making process and sustainable outcome. A no-fuss, top-down approach with very little participation – as practiced in Singapore – could challenge this claim if empirical evidence showed that it is equally capable of providing urban infrastructures that facilitate sustainable behaviors. This article describes such a test. It detects an incongruence between normative preferences for participatory design and the actual result of Singapore’s approach. However, it also questions the implications of these findings, especially their transferability and the seemingly implied conclusion about the substitutability of public participation.

Keywords:

• sustainable development
• Singapore
• infrastructures
• facilitation
• Latour
• behavior
• social practices
• synchronization of technical and social change
• governance
• participation
• technology

1. Introduction

‘No single approach [to sustainable development] will, or indeed should be, seen as the correct one’ (Robinson 2004, p. 382). Such emphases on the contingent character of sustainable development are emerging more frequently, as the attempts to define, and thus arrest, the concept of sustainable development prove undesirable or impractical (Moore 2007). Despite this growing appreciation of the cultural, political, geographical and other dimensions of context, what seems to persist is a universal agreement that sustainability is always concerned with technologies and human behavior, regardless of context. A certain group of authors – including Brand (2005a, 2005b, 2008), Hoogma et al. (2002), Kemp and Rotmans (2005), Schot (2002), Guy and Shove (2000), Rohracher and Ornetzeder (2002) and Southerton et al. (2004) – extend their universality claim even beyond this point. They argue for a particular relationship between the technical and the social. While they agree that we need technological and social change, they assert that, when pursued in isolation, these approaches fall for the allure of naïve technical or social fixes, respectively. Even in an eclectic mix-and-match combination they miss out on significant potential for progress toward sustainability – namely the coevolution or synchronization of social and technical change. These authors argue for the provision of infrastructure (including software, trash bins, trains, buildings) that affords, enables or facilitates sustainable social practices. An example of the most basic kind is the provision of bicycle lanes.

Most of these authors are concerned not only with the relationship between the social and the technical, but also with the process through which this relationship ought to develop. This, the argument goes, should be genuinely participatory, not only because it is legally required or ethically advised, but also because it is more effective. The bicycle example may illustrate this point. A bicycle lane alone is unlikely to impact on people’s commuting preferences. Without a sturdy bike rack, shower, locker, and towel rack, cyclists would still worry about their bike being stolen, their smell being noticed and their sweaty clothes going moldy through being stored in a plastic bag. Therefore, the supply side needs to understand the minutiae and complexities of people’s everyday life or their ‘total chain of experiential needs’ (Brand 2008). According to these authors, a genuinely participatory process is the most effective procedure for achieving an agreement, before an intervention is implemented, that the supply side will provide and the demand side will use.

In essence, this argument postulates a causal link between process (participatory versus non-participatory) and outcome (strategies that successfully facilitate sustainable social practices). For semantic clarity, the next paragraph therefore defines these two variables. There follows a review of the existing literature on the claimed practical benefits of participatory approaches. This leads to the detection of a gap in the existing knowledge and, in turn, to the definition of the research question underpinning the subsequent empirical part of this article.

2. Claimed causal links between process and outcome

For the purpose of this investigation, a decision-making process qualifies as participatory if it is ‘transformative’ (Cooper & Pickering 2008) – that is, if it has the potential to transform the content, even the nature, of a proposed intervention and the position of all participants, including the supply side. Transformative participation is thus a form of mutual learning. It is much more than merely an attempt to ensure demand-side compliance, educate the user (Till 2005) or ‘an expedient method of placation’ (Till 2006). In its most ambitious form, it transfers power, resources, responsibility, information, agenda-setting privileges, and control to the public. This notion of public involvement falls within the upper rungs of Arnstein’s famous ‘ladder of citizen participation’ (1969). Similar classification schemes were developed by Petts (2000), Reed (2008), and many others. Philosophically, theoretically and normatively, such arguments often rest on seminal works by authors like Habermas (1984), Dryzek (2000), or Barbour (2003). Efforts to translate this position to the field of planning, urban development and architecture have been made by Healey (1997), Bull et al. (2008), Marshall and Roberts (1997), Blundell et al. (2005), Owens (2000), and many others.

The outcome variable has already been introduced above, but needs a bit further precision. This study does not investigate the claim of a causal link between participatory processes and sustainable outcomes per se, but between participatory processes and a particular kind of outcome: the synchronization of social and technical change, in the sense of material interventions, that effectively facilitates sustainable social practices along the whole chain of experiential needs.

Let us review the existing literature on the link between these two variables. Broad agreement exists on the normative advantages of public participation. Petts, for example, identifies the ‘legitimation of decision-making, enhancement of democracy and enlargement of citizenship’ (2000, p. iii) as key benefits. However, auto-, techno- and bureaucratic regimes are unlikely to be convinced by such arguments. Also, the academic community has begun to critically review the ideological pedestal upon which many place participation. Reed, for example, argues that ‘although many benefits have been claimed for participation, disillusionment has grown amongst practitioners and stakeholders who have felt let down when these claims are not realised’ (2008, p. 2417).

What is needed, then, is to suspend – at least temporarily – the ideological claim that participatory design is an indispensable ingredient of successful facilitative interventions. If we are convinced of participation’s practical superiority, we should not be afraid of putting it on the empirical test bench. So what is the existing evidence in support of the effectiveness of participatory approaches for concrete interventions that facilitate sustainable behaviors?

Ravetz (1999) differentiates precisely between ‘process [and] outcome’ but is concerned with environmental governance in general as outcome variable and not with the facilitative quality of infrastructural interventions. Similarly interesting, but not directly related to the issue at hand, is Petts’ study (2000), which provides evidence for the practical value of participation in terms of time saving, conflict prevention, resource pooling, people empowerment and trust, capacity and community building. A similar study asserts the beneficial impacts of participation on ‘social cohesion and trust’ (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2004). This view is endorsed by the UK charity for participation ‘Involve’, which adds that participation helps to ‘reflect community values [and] provide a basis for future growth and development’ (2005, p. 19). Healey’s seminal work (1997) also promotes similar arguments without, again, directly addressing the facilitative effect of urban interventions.

The World Bank Operations Evaluation Department (2005) reviewed the effect of community-based and -driven development programs on outcome criteria such as economic sustainability, long-term maintenance, poverty reduction, community capacity enhancement, implementability, fiduciary compliance, corruption, transparency, accountability, and institutional enhancement. A similar evaluation of ‘the impact of participation on sustainability’ in projects in the global South is presented by Kleemeier (2000) but was not designed to answer the question of whether participatory processes lead to more effective facilitative projects. The same holds for a number of other studies with titles such as ‘Evaluating the effectiveness of deliberative processes’ (Petts 2001), ‘Assessing the impacts of public participation’ (Abelson & Gauvin 2006) or ‘Public participation and the environment: Do we know what works?’ (Chess & Purcell 1999).

The necessity of genuine participation to devise interventions that facilitate socially desired social practices is not an explicit focus of any study reviewed. A number of authors do argue that participation helps to ‘create more efficient and better services’ (Involve 2005, p. 19), which relates to the issue at hand but not in an explicit way. Some studies touch upon two key issues that are hypothesized as relevant for the design of facilitative interventions. One is the overcoming of conventional approaches, such as complexity-averse technological fixes or unilateral behavior changes. The other is the necessity to acquire knowledge about people’s experiential needs, concerns, preferences, everyday life rationales, adaptation strategies, routines, etc. On the former, Petts argues that participation can ‘encourage diverse perspectives (and so identify issues not thought of)’ (2000, p. 17). This resonates very closely with Kernohan, Daish and Gray, who call for participation because it ‘will bring forward new questions and solutions not previously thought of’ (1992, p. 145). The same authors also argue that ‘social negotiation can [help] explore the experiential knowledge … of the user’ (Kernohan et al. 1992, p. 138). Participation as a means for needs assessment is emphasized by authors like Pratchett (1999) and Wilson (1999), but more in the sense of governmental accountability than in the spirit of facilitative interventions. Broome is implicitly interested in the latter when he argues that participation is needed to understand energy conservation (2005, p. 65), but he does not develop this idea systematically enough to answer the question posed in this study. A number of other authors (e.g. Petts 2000; Day 2003; Reed 2008) provide evidence of the knowledge acquisition effect of participation. However, they discuss this mainly as a way of utilizing the formal, technical, procedural, or place-specific knowledge of the participants, which is not directly related to the idea of facilitative interventions.

3. The research question

An obvious research question would thus be: ‘Is participation necessary for the design of facilitative interventions?’ The problem in terms of research design is that even if we observe a large number of participatory processes that led to successful facilitative interventions, we cannot deduct with certainty that participation was an indispensable element. After all, it could still be that clever designers would have managed to achieve the same result without participation. This would be a case of an alternative third or ‘lurking’ variable. If we see thousands of white swans, we cannot deduct with certainty that there are no black swans, to use Popper’s (1959) famous example. It gets really interesting – and the frontier of knowledge is pushed forward – if we do find a black swan.

It would thus lead to more robust findings if we found an example of a non-participatory process that nevertheless led to strategies and interventions that facilitate certain social practices. The research question was therefore defined in a strategically narrow way as: ‘Do non-participatory approaches inevitably fail to facilitate sustainable¹ social practices?’

For reasons outlined below, I suggest Singapore as a test case. Depending on the findings, this single test case could be sufficient for some robust conclusions: If it turns out that Singapore fails to achieve facilitative interventions, we would still not learn a great new deal because such a failure could be due to a host of reasons – lack of participation but also corruption, unprofessionalism, etc. If, however, we found that Singapore does achieve facilitative measures (i.e. no failure), the above research question could be negated and we would learn something new. This single-case research design is therefore in line with Flyvbjerg’s (2006) defense of n = 1 case studies as long as their research question is modest enough and their validity claim not overextended.

4. The process variable – empirical evidence: transformative participation in Singapore?

The city-state of Singapore seems particularly suitable as a test case because it is often touted as the cliché of a strong state that is governed by enlightened leaders with little input from its citizens. But stereotypes are not a substitute for empirical evidence. This section therefore assesses the process variable in Singapore in order to check its suitability as a test case.

It rests primarily on the analysis of existing reports and studies (Gibson 1993; Koolhaas 1995; Huat 1999; da Cunha 2002; Bishop et al. 2004; Olds and Wai-Chung 2005; Yang 2005; Bunnell et al. 2006; Trocki 2006; Teo et al. 2008), archival data (primarily from the National Library and the library of the National University of Singapore), various government publications, brochures, posters, newsletters and, most importantly, 19 in-depth interviews, lasting between 40 and 120 minutes, with academics, architects, planners and representatives of ministries and government agencies. In order to protect their identity, and to elicit frank and open responses, all interviewees are referred to by pseudonyms.

As Moore (2007) and others argued, one cannot understand a city without knowing the story lines that constitute the threads from which its collective or dominant vision is woven. In Singapore, the most prevalent thread is the memory of its genesis: the sudden and unwanted separation from Malaysia in 1965, which left this young nation of only 582² km² ‘cut off from a natural hinterland’ (Woon no date). This implied a precarious dependence on material resources, including water, from its unloved and unloving former mother country. This sense of existential threat left the government of the People’s Action Party (PAP), under the strong leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, no leeway to pursue an ideologically pure polity. Effectiveness, efficiency and reason, as well as ‘far-sighted, judicious’ (MND 1994, p. 4) and ‘meticulous planning’ (Keung 1998, p. 12) were seen as ‘essential to the nation’s survival’ (Tan, quoted in Yuen 1998, p. 2), ‘not idealistic visions’ (interviewee Zem Hong, architect). This is why Singapore’s governance is often referred to as ‘strategic pragmatism’ (Schein 1996). Chang confirms this impression and describes Singapore as ‘a nation driven by an ideology of pragmatism’ (2000, p. 821). The confession of one interviewee, Won Gang (social scientist), is therefore not surprising: ‘We’re never coherently cultured anyway. And at the end of the day, a lot of pragmatism takes over.’

The CEO of the Housing Development Board (HDB) – an enormously powerful government agency in charge of almost 90% of all residential units in Singapore – maintains that ‘our compulsion for logic … rationality [and] planning can overcome many problems’ (Ker 1983, pp. 67 and 68). Most representatives of state organizations seem to share a similar belief in a teleological notion of progress, which implies that the optimum can be calculated, planned and achieved. Why should a government in possession of so much certainty open the debate to the general public, especially if national survival is constantly at stake?

According to two interviewees, Hong and John Shriver (both social scientists), this explains the strong interventionist tradition of the Singaporean government. Singapore is ‘one of the most planned cities in the world. It got plans for everything under the sun – from urban planning to family planning; you name it, they have it’ (interviewee Emil Zhiane, academic with a previous career as civil servant). Koon Hean Cheong, CEO of the national planning authority, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), legitimizes ‘very detailed and stringent controls’ (URA 2004, p. 3) for urban planning with this kind of enlightened leadership. One interviewee, Hong, sees a general pattern behind this preference for action over talk: ‘Singapore is trying to take the shortcut to excellence’, without the frivolous detour of debate. Cast into one simple principle, interviewee Shriver explains: ‘Once they decide something, they do it – boom.’ Similarly, Hee and Ooi talk about the ‘singular lack [of] popular involvement … in the planning and development of public spaces’ (2003, p. 79).

Analytical verdicts on Singapore’s governance cover a wide spectrum. At the more moderate end, for example, Yeung writes, rather diplomatically, about the ‘strong role of the state and its institutions’ (Yeung 1999, p. 110) or about ‘an effective and clean government’ (Tsui-Auch 2002, p. 357) that engages in ‘interventionist management of the nation’ (Goh 2005, p. 837). Harding (2003) pre-empts more critical suspicions and rejects ‘the fascist, Orwellian images one might conjure … [Singaporeans] aren’t exploited, they’re molly-coddled … [The state] wants them to be safe, happy and morally pure.’ The fact that Lee Kuan Yew and his successors have managed over the last 50 years to ‘produc[e] massive improvements in the material life of the entire population’ (Huat 1999, p. 791) – while being surrounded by some rather poor countries – has certainly helped to create complaisant and complacent voters. In other words, material security – combined with a politically nurtured ‘perennial “crisis mentality” ’ (Ow 1984, p. 367) – seems to make the majority of Singaporeans inclined to tolerate the many shortcomings of their political system. The PAP developed its power base in the 1960s using highly unscrupulous methods; Huat cites ‘the government’s manipulation of the electoral processes to ensure its own absolutist hold on power’ (1999, p. 791). MacLeod even talks about Singapore’s ‘repressive … state apparatuses [that] are folded together in a disciplinary and, at times, penalizing and stoutly authoritarian effort’ (2002, p. 608).

According to government statements, over the last decade, the state has introduced a more consultative and participatory approach to decision-making, especially with regard to very concrete, local, urban development issues. Allegedly, it is moving toward a culture of ‘committees, … made up of people across all sectors, to provide impetus and information to formulate action programs’ (Singapore Government 2004, p. 1). Further steps have been taken to engage more directly with ordinary citizens through the REACH system,³ a ‘light-touch moderated’ online platform where everyone can, theoretically, comment on everything.

While such initiatives are refreshing in the Singaporean context, they remain a form of consultation rather than transformative participation. In fact, Olds and Wai-Chung argue that ‘the politics of urban change is [still] highly charged, hierarchical in nature, and it rarely becomes complicated by citizen involvement procedures’ (2005, p. 398). Existing evidence thus indicates that, despite the introduction of some strategies to engage with its population, the Singaporean state opens such fora only for ‘sandbox issues’ (interview Gang), meaning those that matter little to the regime’s overall survival. Even these strategies might only qualify as consultative, but not as deliberative with any transformative potential. One interviewee, Kim Shing, who recently attended a community meeting with an explicit sustainability focus criticized the ‘tokenistic nature of the whole exercise’.

While most readers might not like such an approach to urban decision-making, we should not expel Singapore from the basket of legitimate case studies. The focus of this article is not to assess the legitimacy of facilitative urban interventions, but their effectiveness. In fact, Singapore emerges from the above analysis as a particularly suitable test case for the research question introduced earlier. Admittedly, this might require suspension of normative dislike of Singapore’s form of urban governance. However, only a bias-free investigation of its effectiveness has the potential to provide a robust critique of such an approach.

5. The outcome variable – empirical evidence: Singapore’s sustainability achievements

An assessment of the outcome of Singapore’s sustainability strategies should not rest on a priori parameters of sustainability, because – as explained above – sustainable development is an inherently contingent challenge. A small tropical island state obviously identifies other threats to its economic, social and environmental survival, and therefore has different sustainability priorities from other nations. It should be noted that Singapore does not have a National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) as called for in chapter 8 of Agenda 21 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992). Instead, it submitted its ‘Green Plan’ (MEWR 2006) as NSDS equivalent to the United Nations. The title of its current edition, ‘Beyond Clean and Green – Towards Environmental Sustainability’, indicates a rhetorical departure from one of Singapore’s most loved clichés that of being a spotlessly clean garden city. What is unique about Singapore is its geographical condition and the massive official and public awareness of the related implications. Because of its lack of any hinterland, the title ‘bodiless dragon’ is circulating in print and minds. This scarcity of land pervades almost all aspects of Singaporean polity, including its interpretation of sustainability.

Such a contingent understanding of sustainability leaves the conceptual integrity of this investigation intact, albeit with a more humble truth claim. In order to assess whether Singapore’s decision-making processes lead to strategies that successfully facilitate sustainable social practices, I analyzed the data mentioned above, made systematic observations during a 3-week-long field trip and made every effort to find related evidence in the vast amount of online information, including the recent interministerial Sustainable Development Blueprint ‘A lively and liveable Singapore – Strategies for sustainable growth’ (Mah et al. 2009).

Just to remind the reader and to clarify a key term, the focus of this investigation is neither on unilateral technical fixes nor on lifestyle changes or social fixes. It is concerned with a different type of approach toward sustainable development: the coevolution or synchronization of social and technical change, or the supply and demand side. Such strategies rest on all kinds of artifacts, technologies and infrastructures that are meant to facilitate changes to social practices. Such artifacts are credited with a degree of agency which derives from their ‘affordances’ (Gibson 1977) or ‘scripts’ (Akrich 1992), ‘programmes’ (Latour 2000) or ‘agendas’ (Brand 2008). While some reject as deterministic the idea that materiality can influence behavior, I propose that the attempts to build a behavioral gravitational pull into material settings is legitimate if – and only if – it is of the facilitative kind that makes certain behaviors easier without restricting freedom of choice (Brand 2005b). A related position has recently gained widespread attention in the form of ‘libertarian paternalism’, incarnated in ‘nudges’ (Thaler & Sunstein 2008).

Sasitharan describes and critiques such efforts as a typical Singaporean way of ‘providing the infrastructure and [hoping that] the software will catch up with the available infrastructure’ (quoted in Chang 2000, p. 824). The purpose of the following sections is therefore to investigate the degree to which Singapore’s sustainability efforts rely on such facilitative elements. In line with the mainstream interpretation of sustainability, the appraisal here focuses on environmental issues, in particular on air quality, water and waste. Of course, many alternative ways to structure the empirical findings are possible, but the empirical material at hand fell most easily into these three categories, as they emerged as the de facto sustainability priorities of Singapore’s government.

5.1. Air quality

Singapore does not generate nuclear energy and does not use many renewable energy sources, so that energy generation primarily implies fossil fuel combustion. Therefore, the correlation between the emission of airborne pollutants and carbon dioxide is very high. It thus makes sense to treat these two problems under the same heading. Singapore has achieved remarkable reductions of self-generated pollution, but it is still struggling with emissions of airborne particulate matters (Hassan 2006). Air quality continues to be a top priority and justifies $31million⁴ in the 2007 budget of the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR).

Technology is considered crucial in the pursuit of this goal. Efficiency is paramount and clearly dominates Singapore’s official sustainability strategy (Mah et al. 2009). Information about energy-efficient appliances and other environmentally friendly products is provided under MEWR’s Green Labelling Scheme. Via the SS 530:2006 Standard (Building and Construction Standards Committee 2006), it also stipulates minimum energy efficiency rating of water heaters, air conditioners, etc. Energy efficiency is also the most weighted parameter in Singapore’s green building labeling scheme, Green Mark. Its main concern with technology-borne efficiency gains is underlined by its classification on the Building and Construction Authority’s website under ‘Home | Technology’ (Building and Construction Authority 2008). One particular strategy, even an interestingly facilitative one, stands out among all these technophilic interventions around buildings: the standard provision of nearly every HDB flat with sticks (Figure 1), which enable residents to dry their laundry without having to consume energy for electrical dryers. Granted, the effects of these sticks will not reduce Singapore’s CO₂ emission dramatically, but they encapsulate very neatly how the authorities try to facilitate small behavioral steps in certain directions.

Figure 1. Laundry drying sticks are a universal feature of HDB flats.

Transport also contributes significantly to the emission of various pollutants and carbon dioxide, and thus deserves mention under this heading. A penchant for technological solutions in this area is manifest in the Green Vehicle Rebate to subsidize electric, hybrid, fuel-cell or compressed natural gas vehicles (National Environment Agency, NEA 2007). A financial push away from inefficient vehicles is the progressively increasing tax rate for cars more than 10 years old, culminating in a surcharge of 50%. But even the cleanest cars need space, which is brutally scarce on this island. Therefore, anyone intending to purchase a motor vehicle has to bid for the right to buy, in the form of a Certificate of Entitlement, which the government issues in restricted quantities. Singapore was also ‘the first in the world to charge cars for driving into the city’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 27) with its Area Licensing Scheme, a form of congestion charge, introduced in 1975. Singapore also attempts to make travel unnecessary in the first place by providing ‘more employment opportunities closer to home. [Thus] the need for long work trips … will be reduced’ (Keung 1998, p. 13).

But even thorough demand-side management cannot render all mobility needs obsolete. This is where maybe the most impressive facilitative strategy comes into play: Singapore’s public transport system. In the 1980s, the government built a spine of Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) lines through the island. In the 1990s, the number of stations tripled to 130 (MND 1994, p. 16), and by 2020 the rail network will be doubled ‘from the current 142km to 278km’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 58). In 2007, all MRT lines combined carried 524 million passengers (Singapore Bus Service 2008; Singapore Mass Rapid Transit 2008b). Doubly important in terms of ridership figures is Singapore’s bus system. The two operators in Singapore’s bus duopoly transported 1032 million passengers in 2006, or an average of 2.8 million per day (Singapore Bus Service 2008; Singapore Mass Rapid Transit 2008a).

These figures are not only due to disincentives to car usage but clearly also to the attractiveness of the public transport system. One aspect of this is the convenient payment procedure with the EZ-Link card, introduced in 2001, a contact-less smart card similar to London’s Oyster Card. But the provision of infrastructures that make the use of public transport more convenient does not end here. Apparently, Singapore’s planners realized that people tend to sweat in a tropical climate when they walk to or wait for trains and buses. Therefore, all MRT stations are fully air conditioned,⁵ and many are equipped with ‘kiss-and-ride’ lanes to facilitate the safe drop-off or pick-up of public transport users, along with other ‘measures to make MRT stations and buses more accessible and convenient’ (MND 1994, p. 36).

Nonmotorized modes of mobility are also supported through the provision of ‘shaded walkways … to make walking more enjoyable’ (MND 1994, p. 36) and ‘convenient’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 62). In addition, ‘better bicycle parking facilities [and other] infrastructural improvements’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 61) are being implemented, in order to facilitate alternative means of transport, to ‘improve pedestrian comfort’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 96) and to ‘better ensure pedestrian and cyclist safety’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 61). The establishment of ‘shower/locker facilities for cyclists’ is also being considered (Mah et al. 2009, p. 123).

To sum up, the Singaporean strategy mix for the reduction of airborne pollutants (including CO₂) contains an eclectic set of measures. These range from classical technical fixes via attempts to persuade the population to behave differently to a number of initiatives that successfully facilitate the desired behavior through infrastructural interventions.

5.2. Water

By far the biggest sustainability concern in Singapore is water scarcity. About half of all freshwater is purchased and pumped from Malaysia. This would be politically unproblematic if Malaysian officials had not previously threatened to cut off the water supply (Shriver). Freshwater is thus a matter of survival, which explains the ‘emblematic nature’ (Gang) of this topic.

By far the largest share of MEWR’s 2007 budget, $468 million, is earmarked under the heading ‘sustainable and affordable water supply’ (MoF 2007). Key measures are the conversion of two-thirds of Singapore into water catchment areas by 2011 and the creation of the Marina Barrage⁶ to separate the brackish water mouth of the Singapore River from the open sea. This massive engineering project will eventually create Singapore’s largest freshwater reservoir, with a storage capacity of 10% of the current water demand.

Another key measure is the recycling of waste water, currently providing 15% of Singapore’s water needs and set to increase to 30% by 2011 (Mah et al. 2009, p. 25). In a few cases – for example in the high-profile eco-project Treelodge@Punggol – this happens at the point of usage, where gray water is used to flush toilets (Kolesnikov-Jessop 2007). Typically, however, water recycling takes place out of sight of the user, in high-tech purification plants. Currently, four plants purify 45 million gallons per day, most of which will be supplied cheaply for nonpotable applications in industries. Only a fraction will be fed into drinking water reservoirs because of psychological resistance – the so-called ‘yuk factor’. Interviewee Fan describes NEWater, as it is called, as a ‘big thing, but not popular’. In an attempt to change this perception, ‘politicians drink NEWater in public’ (Fan). Singapore also has one of the largest desalination plants in the world, producing 30 million gallons of water per day, 10% of Singapore’s potable water need. This approach completes what is called the ‘four national taps’ strategy, comprising water imports, rainwater catchment in reservoirs, NEWater and desalinated water. Both the purification and desalination approach are clear examples of technical fixes.

This mix of approaches focuses largely on the supply side. But water conservation is a big issue as well, mainly based on three principles. One is water pricing, which means higher rates for higher consumption. The second revolves the compulsory installation of ‘water saving devices such as self closing taps, low capacity flushing cistern and low flow showers’ (Shankar 2007). The third strand comprises voluntary measures, based on campaigns to educate people, for example with the help of the mascot Water Wally, a Take shorter Showers comic, and many others. Singapore also makes it easy to comply with these goals, for example through the layout of the monthly water bill, which ‘tells you exactly how much you used last month … and how this compares to the Singapore average’ (Shriver). The Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme and the Water Efficient Homes Program (Public Utility Board 2006) are also meant to make water conservation simple. The latter includes an awareness-raising and demonstration program to assist in the installation of water-saving devices. With such measures, the Public Utility Board is hoping to reduce daily per capita consumption from 165 L (in 2003) to 140 L by 2030 (Mah et al. 2009). A shorter-term target is to reduce the average daily water consumption by 10 L, but even this would reduce Singapore’s daily demand by only 11 million gallons – less than one-quarter of the amount produced by Singapore’s water recycling plants.

Overall, it seems that Singapore’s attempts to create a sustainable water management system include not only technophilic approaches but also financial, educational and other measures aimed at producing unilateral behavior changes. However, Singapore also pursues a limited number of strategies that rest on the facilitation of new behaviors through the provision of certain material artifacts and infrastructures.

5.3. Waste

‘Proper waste management is imperative … [due to] Singapore’s unique constraint of a densely populated, highly urbanized city with limited land area’ (MEWR 2007, p. 6). The three key thrusts of this approach are waste minimization at source, volume reduction through incineration and recycling (MEWR 2007). These combined strategies are funded in the 2007 budget of MEWR, with $104 million (MoF 2007). Waste minimization, however, does not feature prominently in official publications. This seems to indicate that it is acknowledged as a desirable principle but does not – yet – lead to significant reductions in waste volumes. What produces very effective results is the incineration of waste, a technical process requiring no user compliance whatsoever. The results are inert ashes that can be disposed of in an offshore landfill, which will eventually morph into a new island.

The cornerstone of Singapore’s waste reduction efforts is the National Recycling Program (NRP), launched in 2001, which prompts interviewee Shriver to conclude that ‘recycling is really big here’. Its key components are awareness campaigns as well as the facilitation of the desired behavior through appropriate infrastructures. Interviewee Gang speculates that the combination of these two approaches is due to ‘bureaucrats’ [assumption] that people are not sufficiently motivated’ to make much effort to recycle their waste. Interviewee Zhiane explains the former approach as the need to instil in people ‘a civic consciousness of the environment as public good’. Therefore, schools are encouraged to form environmental clubs with financial support from the NEA. Pro-recycling campaigns also include competitions, awards, field trips, carnivals, Recycling Days at public libraries and community centers as well as Singapore’s annual Clean and Green Week, Earth Day and World Environment Day (see Ong 2005).

But Singapore does not employ only moralizing awareness campaigns. The NRP also led to the introduction of infrastructures that ‘make it easy for Singaporeans to recycle’ (MEWR 2006; emphasis added):

Residents [of HDB flats, i.e. the vast majority of the population] are given recycling bags … where they can put in paper, plastic and glass bottles, old clothing, metal cans, drink cartons etc. The recycling companies will collect them from their doorsteps fortnightly. (NEA 2004)

This collection procedure is the result of a tricky socio-technical problem. HDB flats were built with just one refuse chute, which prevents convenient waste separation. The authorities realize, however, that convenience, and not passionate environmentalism, is what might motivate Singaporeans to separate their waste. What remains as second best option, therefore, is the hand collection of recycling bags from every door. The retrofitting of existing and the construction of new HDB flats with separate refuse chutes remains on the agenda, however (Mah et al. 2009). The residential eco-project Treelodge@Punggol has now a recycling chute on every floor (Kolesnikov-Jessop 2007). The facilitation logic also inspired the provision of ‘some 5,200 recycling bins … at public areas … to encourage the public to recycle waste’ (Ong 2005, p. 2). Another 1600 recycling bins have been installed in HDB estates, so that ‘residents can deposit their recyclables at any time of the day and need not walk more than 150m to do so’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 43). And for the future, ‘NEA will study the feasibility of installing new infrastructure that can make recycling even more convenient’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 122; emphasis added).

The results of the NRP are considerable, According to Ong, the ‘participation rate by households increased from 22% in 2001 to 54% by end 2004’ (2005, p. 2). The figures for 2006 show that ‘3 out of every 5 households participate in the program’ (MEWR 2006). By 2030, the recycling rate should reach 70% ‘through providing more recycling facilities’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 41) and complimentary incentives. The NEA takes such figures as an indication ‘that Singaporeans are indeed playing their part’ (2005).

In short, Singapore’s national waste management system consists of a number of high- and low-tech interventions that do not require the attention, let alone compliance, of the population. In addition, the citizenry is frequently encouraged to take no-tech actions for the reduction, reuse or recycling of waste. But the Singaporean authorities clearly also try to enable the desired behavior with artifactual interventions that qualify as examples of facilitative measures.

6. Back to the research question

The above confirms the characterization of Singapore’s problem-solving approach as an eclectic mix of technical and social interventions. Singapore is therefore ‘probably best located in the middle. You have high-tech … but also permanent attempts to change behavior’, as interviewee Shriver sums up. And despite the fact that hardly anyone uses terms like coevolutionary or facilitative, many of the measures described above actually deserve this label. Perhaps the most prominent example is Singapore’s public transport system, which officially has to become ever ‘more convenient’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 63; emphasis added). The routing, train frequency, payment procedure and station design of the MRT system are all part of this strategy. Other examples of material interventions that make sustainable behaviors convenient include the provision of ‘kiss-and-ride’ lanes, the doorstep collection of recyclables and the generous provision of recycling bins at public spaces and the systematic provision of ‘shaded walkways … to make walking more pleasant’ (MND 1994, p. 9) and ‘more enjoyable for pedestrians and commuters’ (MND 1994, p. 36). Assistance with the installation of water-saving devices, the intention to provide separate recycling chutes in future HBD flats, the ‘provision of planters’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 49) to encourage façade greening and, very prominently, the universal provision of laundry-drying sticks in HDB flats are all measures that also fall into the facilitative category.

Although the facilitative approach could be even more systematic and prominent, it would be unfair to say that Singapore’s attempts to facilitate certain social practices, which are deemed more sustainable than the status ante quo, have failed across the board. In fact, many material interventions are rather effective in facilitating more sustainable (according to the local definition) social practices – despite the lack of transformative participatory elements in their design. The evidence gathered does therefore allow us to negate that ‘non-participatory approaches inevitably fail to facilitate sustainable social practices’.

7. Lessons to learn?

I am not fond of this conclusion. It undermines the pragmatic argument for transformative participation as a precondition for successful facilitative initiatives, and might therefore even be used by autocratic regimes to justify the imposition of top-down decisions upon a voiceless populace. Before they do so, however, they should thoroughly reflect upon three key points. First, we can assume that Singaporean decision-makers still depend on precise knowledge about the experiential needs of their citizens. Second, the transferability of lessons from Singapore to other cultural and political contexts is far from given. Third, the basket of issues perceived as pressing (i.e. the definition of sustainable development) differs in other countries and will change over time – even in Singapore. These three issues will be briefly discussed in the remainder of this article.

7.1. Substitutability of participation?

Facilitation can only be effective if the affordances of artifacts are congruent with people’s preferences or at least with their willingness to comply. This requires detailed knowledge of people’s complex experiential needs and desires, which is best acquired through direct communication with them. In this process, the supply and demand side would develop agreements about the features, usage, management, costs, institutional embedding, etc., of a new technical setting before it is implemented. The question is whether this effect can be achieved by other means.

Some evidence indicates that Singaporean decision-makers are aware of this challenge and try to obtain this knowledge, for example, through ‘studies to better understand … behavior’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 53). As mentioned above, Singapore is also moving toward a culture of ‘committees, … to provide impetus and information to formulate action programs’ (Singapore Government 2004, p. 1). A similar attempt to acquire local and experiential knowledge is the aforementioned REACH system. While such initiatives indicate a growing appreciation of people’s perceived needs, concerns and preferences, they remain a form of consultation, rather than transformative participation. The combination of research and consultation might, in fact, be sufficiently effective and provide enough information to devise successful facilitative interventions. This is not to say that knowledge acquisition could not be much more effective and efficient were it conducted in a participatory way.

7.2. Transferability to other cultural contexts?

Advocates of participatory approaches tend to claim that in circumstances where no real power is delegated to citizens, people will have to be coaxed into the desired behavior. This might explain the ubiquity of awareness and educational campaigns in Singapore. In this context, one should recall that in the second half of the 20th century, more than half of Singapore's population were categorized in the national census as belonging to the two traditional Chinese religions of Buddhism and Taoism (although this figure has recently declined to 44% (Singapore Department of Statistics 2010, p. 2). Both are linked to the practical doctrine of Confucianism, which has often been described as a philosophy that implies loyalty to the legitimate authority and subordination of individual preferences to the common good. For a nuanced interpretation of this claim, see Tan (2003). Teo, Yeoh and Ong also refer to ‘Singapore’s specific … social values, social conditions, political contingencies … [and] strong social discipline’, and emphasize that the question of ‘whether these are replicable in a different time and space is another matter’ (2008, pp. 100–101). Potentially related to this is the striking homogeneity of the Singaporean population in terms of widely shared socioeconomic dreams,⁷ and even such mundane issues as hairdos and attires. The spectrum of preferences might therefore be somewhat narrower and easier to cater for, compared to other countries. This is, of course, hugely speculative but probably worth bearing in mind when trying to distill lessons from Singapore to other cultural contexts.

7.3. Suitability for alternative definitions of sustainable development?

Does the Singaporean policy mix deliver sustainable development? This question has been deliberately been suspended thus far because its main purpose was to investigate the relationship between participatory process and the facilitative quality of the outcomes. When we do admit the substantive and absolute quality of the outcome, however, we need to define a definition or at least a reference point against which ‘sustainability’ can be assessed. The answer therefore depends, for example, on whether one consults the GIN-DEX – a country-specific index of environmental performance – or the ranking produced by the World Economic Forum’s The Global Leaders of Tomorrow (GLT) Community. The former assesses the environmental performance of 36 countries in terms of carbon emissions, water pollution, commercial energy use and industrial output, and places Singapore at number eight place (Mccoy 2001). The latter ‘ranks Singapore as one of the 10 worst countries … for its environmental record’ (Mccoy 2001). This massive discrepancy is due to the very different indicator sets used. The GLT report considers many more criteria than the GIN-DEX and includes ‘threats to biodiversity, … human vulnerability to environmental impact, … whether there is an activist green community in the country, global stewardship … and other global problems’ (Mccoy 2001). These findings resonate with a comment made by interviewee Zhiane, who distinguishes between Singapore’s ‘intra-urban’ and ‘extra-urban’ sustainability performance. The former concerns issues such as waste disposal, sewage treatment, cleanliness, and greenery. In this category, ‘Singapore deserves a straight A’ (Zhiane). Extra-urban issues include carbon emissions, impacts on global biodiversity, deforestation, and desertification, which are largely caused by high consumption patterns locally.

Against this background, it is illuminating to recall the financial allocation to some key challenges by the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources in the 2007 budget. The biggest chunks are clearly dedicated to predominantly intra-urban issues (see above for detailed figures). Interestingly, over 10 years ago, but already after the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, climate change was not even mentioned in a document called ‘Planning for Sustainable Urban Development’ by then URA Deputy Chief Planner Keung (1998). Rhetorically, the Sustainable Development Blueprint, published in 2009, has moved on a great deal. However, Singapore still does not even allude to the possibility of quantitative reduction targets.

It seems that Singapore defines sustainability in rather instrumental terms for the benefit of the nation – and for the stability of the regime. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development makes this very clear: ‘Sustainable development for Singapore is about achieving development while minimizing its impact on resources and our environmental quality’ (Mah et al. 2009, p. 4; emphasis added). This is where normative issues trickle back into our argument, and where new questions emerge about whether citizen participation tends to bring forth more altruistic ambitions.

This study therefore does not settle the question once and for all whether transformative participation is needed in order to achieve sustainability beyond social and technical fixes. Further research is clearly required to better understand the cultural specificity of the process/outcome link, the substantive quality of the outcome variable, the conditions under which participation might be somewhat substitutable and, most importantly, the tools through which the pragmatic and normative benefits of transformative participation can be harnessed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ralf Brand

Ralf Brand: Manchester Architecture Research Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Notes

1. 1. It is not the purpose of this article to judge whether certain social practices or the means by which they are facilitated are ‘truly’ sustainable. This would mean to operate with an underlying universal set of sustainability criteria – an approach ruled out at the very beginning of this article, owing to the acceptance of locally contingent notions of sustainability.

2. 2. Due to Singapore’s massive land reclamation program, the country has now grown to around 700 km².

3. 3. Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home – http://app.reach.gov.sg/.

4. 4. $ refers to Singaporean dollars. SG$1 = US$0.964, 20 July 2009.

5. 5. Although this decision might appear somewhat questionable from an energy conservation point of view, it can at least be seen as an acknowledgement of Singaporean authorities that traffic can only be shifted from individual cars to public transport if the latter is perceived as thoroughly pleasant. See Section 2for a justification of this interpretation.

6. 6. http://www.pub.gov.sg/Marina/

7. 7. Seehttp://www.singaporedreaming.com