New Action for Alliance formed to develop guidelines on sustainable packaging for e-commerce sector

27 September 2024

On 23 August 2024, the National Environment Agency (“NEA”) and the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (“SMF”) announced the creation of the Alliance for Action (“AfA”) on Packaging Waste Reduction for the E-commerce Sector. The objective of this AfA, which is supported by NEA with SMF and Singapore Post as co-leads, is to develop sector-specific voluntary guidelines on sustainable packaging for the e-commerce sector. AfAs are industry-led coalitions, working in partnership with the Government, to prototype ideas in areas of opportunity for Singapore or address a common challenge. 

The AfA guidelines are intended to complement the Technical Reference on Sustainable Packaging Guiding Framework and Practices (“TR109:2023”) by contextualising it to the e-commerce sector. The TR109:2023, which was launched in 2022, specifies guidelines, criteria, and best practices in implementing the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) for business-to-business and business-to-consumer packaging. The AfA guidelines will focus on packaging used or added specifically to enable an e-commerce transaction, such as transportation and mailing packaging, void-fill packaging, and labels. 

The guidelines aim to help companies in the e-commerce sector make informed decisions on sustainable packaging solutions to reduce, reuse, and recycle packaging waste. Areas that AfA stakeholders are looking into include e-commerce marketplace initiatives that promote sustainable packaging and solutions for each type of commonly used e-commerce packaging. These would be augmented with details on the actions to take, potential benefits and drawbacks, and relevant case studies and references. 

Reference materials 

The media release is available on the NEA website www.nea.gov.sg.