Sustainability Impact Awards is about recognising and inspiring leaders, Sustainability Impact Awards

“We have actually been offered a lot more opportunities by many landlords and also many well-established, well-known (food and beverage) partners,” said Lee. “This award has certainly increased (awareness of) The Social Kitchen… and has certainly raised our exposure to the corporates and the community as well, so we can continue to promote our sustainability efforts.”

She was not the only one to have seen a positive impact from the recognition conveyed by the Awards.

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Aileen Tan, group chief people and sustainability officer at telco Singtel, said receiving the award “gives us a lot more confidence that we are actually (headed) in the right direction”. Singtel was named Impact Enterprise of the Year in the large enterprise category.

Preston Wong, who was named Impact Leader of the Year in the individual category, said the Awards have also been a catalyst – creating “ripple effects”.

Wong is co-founder and chief executive of Treatsure, which aims to curb food wastage by offering a platform where shops, eateries and grocery suppliers can offer deals to consumers in order to clear surplus stock or food.

Through the Awards, Wong said various players can be pulled together “to journey together and create even greater impact”.

The importance of impact

This multiplier effect of impact begetting impact is what UOB had in mind when it first conceived of the award, said the company’s chief sustainability officer Eric Lim.

“This award is perhaps slightly different from some of the other awards. It’s very focused on impact,” he said. “In the early days of sustainability, we realised very quickly that there was a lot of hype around sustainability. This was necessary, but also unhealthy.”

Companies and individuals showed an obsession with making big commitments and setting grand targets, and UOB worried about what might happen if this continued over the long run.

“It is our conviction that sustainability has to be about positive impact, and we need to help shape the narrative of this North Star – both at the industry level and at the bank level,” said Lim.

This concern led UOB to a focus on identifying and reporting positive impact. Without such impact, Lim said, there is a risk of inputs and activities amounting to little or nothing.

Leaning into positive impact, an idea for an award that celebrates businesses and individuals was taken to the group’s chief executive Wee Ee Cheong – with the expectation that there would be some selling involved.

“Barely 30 seconds into the conversation, he got it and gave us his full support,” said Lim. “That’s literally the origin story of these Awards.

“He’s not about grabbing headlines, or branding for the sake of branding. From a sustainability standpoint, he is always healthily sceptical in making sure that we are talking about sustainability in a progressive and pragmatic way.”

The next leg

“Well-designed awards get better with age,” Lim said, noting that the submissions for the 2024 edition were of even higher quality than last year’s and from an even larger range of companies. “It just shows that we’re going from strength to strength, like a fine wine.”

This year’s winners include companies that have been incorporating sustainability into their business practices long before doing so became popular.

Property developer City Developments Limited, for instance, won the Impact Enterprise of the Year award in the large enterprise category, and its chief sustainability officer Esther An was named Impact Leader of the Year.

Excellence Award winners in the large enterprise category were asset manager Keppel, island manager Sentosa Development Corporation, and property developer UOL Group (along with its hospitality arm, Pan Pacific Hotels Group).

In the individual category, Excellence Awards were given to two chief executives who have made significant contributions to their companies and to society through their roles as stewards of their organisations.

Cheng Hsing Yao, CEO of property developer GuocoLand, has had a personal hand in many of the company’s green decisions, as has Jeffrey Sim, CEO of transport operator SBS Transit.

In the small and medium enterprise category, food production was a big theme. Aquaponics farm BlueAcres was named Impact Enterprise of the Year, and Excellence Awards were given to urban farmer Edible Garden City and social collective Ground-Up Initiative. The latter’s project also includes a farm.

An Excellence Award was also given to Seven Clean Seas, for its pioneering model of plastic credits that is commercialising the removal of plastic from oceans.

“What’s next for the Sustainability Impact Awards is not to try to do too many things poorly,” Lim added, but rather to make it a high-quality and authentic event that can amplify impact.

Already, Lim said, the Awards are creating a buzz among the bank’s clients. A recent survey showed UOB’s clients have begun to see it as a bank that is aligned with sustainability and creating positive impact. This is important not so much for branding, but because of the power UOB has to catalyse action.

“A bank doesn’t touch the real economy. It does not make a single widget, doesn’t grow a single item of produce, and doesn’t produce a kilowatt of electricity, but at the same time, a bank is everywhere,” Lim said.

“We are both limited and unlimited in the sense that in order to create real-world positive impact, we can’t do it by ourselves. We have a strong ability to reach into the top levels of companies, not only to finance transactions, but also to advise. That’s the unique role of the bank – you can affect sustainability strategies.”

Several years ago, as UOB was putting together its net-zero targets, there had been plenty of concern internally that these targets would end up curtailing business. These days, however, Lim said bankers are representing the opportunities created by sustainable finance. It is the fastest-growing segment of the lender’s wholesale book.

Awards are sometimes criticised for accomplishing little, which Lim said may sometimes be true. Yet, he believes the right approach can lead to great outcomes.

“At the end of the day, people love stories that inspire us, uplift us and encourage us; that give us courage to say something can be done, done right, and I can participate,” he said.

“The world wants to know that we can win by being good companies – companies that operate responsibly and sustainably. So, when you have a business model, when you have an initiative or a programme that shows you can do well while doing good, please come forward and share your story. It will inspire others.”